


Running Blind With Eyes Wide Open

by catskilt



Category: Super Junior
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:56:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catskilt/pseuds/catskilt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a lifetime in each other, if they chose to see it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part zero; a moment

**part zero; a moment**

Donghae could have stayed in bed for a couple more hours that morning, but he chooses to get up instead.

It is hard, after all, to remain in bed when you've long been in the habit of getting up at seven o' clock. The mind begins thinking, the eyes open and refuse to be closed. Perhaps tomorrow he'll stay in bed for fifteen more minutes, and the next day for half an hour, and maybe by the end of the week he won't get up till noon.

Noon's the furthest he'll go. Afternoon visiting hours in the nursing home are from one to six, and if he's going to miss the morning hours he's not going to waste any of the afternoon's.

He makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen; starts the coffee machine, opens the fridge for butter and jam. He can't be bothered to make an intricate breakfast; he's not often hungry now, and there's no point in going to all that trouble for himself. The coffee machine cranks. It's getting old, too. 

A strong, rain-smelling wind is blowing in the garden outside, throwing swaying shadows of leaves onto the photo frame opposite the microwave. The glass gleams one second, darkens the next on the two smiling faces. His blue enamel mug is slightly chipped at the top (when had that happened?), butter and jam sweet and salty on wholemeal bread. The floor tiles are cold and impersonal underneath his feet as he contemplates the photo frame, wakes up from morning vagueness with the bitterness of coffee. Maybe he should move now, find a smaller place, a one-room apartment that would be more suited to his mobility and needs. 

As always, he abandons the idea before it has a chance to grow. He finishes his simple sandwich and makes his way slowly out of the kitchen. His joints ache; it might be due to the coming rain. For a moment he fancies he hears a bed creaking, phlegm clearing, but he remembers that there's nobody there. He's living alone now. Sounds are imaginary.

An hour later he's washed and smelling of soap. He has his good coat on, his pavement-beaten leather shoes, his wallet in his pocket. He wonders if there's anything else he should be bringing along; a towel maybe, a change of underwear, a new toothbrush? He doesn't want to remember that the nursing home is more than capable of taking care of all that; he doesn't want to relinquish his caretaker role yet though he _has_ , ironically, already relinquished it. The thought makes him sad, but he and Hyukjae had promised each other before Hyukjae left that they won't dwell. Not for something so necessary and practical as this. There will be other more important things to dwell on. 

It begins to rain just as he's about to leave. He pauses for a moment; takes off his leather shoes and goes into the empty bedroom on the ground floor. It's still and cold and brown-tinted by the closed windows. Donghae slides the windows back a crack, lets in a little of the wind. The blades in the small portable fan standing on the chest of drawers begin to rotate slowly, unsurely. 

He stands in the middle of the room, watching the lines of rain flickering carelessly and irregularly onto the garden. Hyukjae would have liked to see this. Hyukjae would say, the grass will be green again.


	2. part one; a past

**part one; a past**

Rewind five decades, and a little more.

His name is Lee Donghae, and it's his first year in Seoul. He's fifteen years old. It's possible at that age to become good friends with pretty much anyone fifteen years old, easier still when he spends nearly all his weekends with the same four boys in the same building going through the same classes in the hope of someday becoming Korea's top idols. Donghae tires quickly of the three-hour commutes from Mokpo to Seoul on early Saturday mornings and back again on late Sunday evenings, but he loves the SM Entertainment building, the singing studios and long corridors and spacious dance rooms and Hyukjae and Junsu goofing around, getting their can drinks stuck in the vending machines and seeing ghosts reflected in windows. 

"It's a green lady," Junsu insists. "She has long hair and blood-red eyes and vampire-like teeth."

"It's an _old_ lady," Hyukjae insists back. "She has grey hair and she's seeking revenge for her son."

"Why?"

"He died in this room," Hyukjae says solemnly. "Dropped dead while learning a dance routine." 

Hyukjae always fails to scare them. Donghae likes the green lady story better, almost hopes he'll be able to see her reflection one day instead of Junsu. He would like to ask her why she's green. 

They're best friends for the weekends. Everyone in SM knows about them; Yunho, Sungmin, Junsu, Hyukjae and Donghae, closest buddies and practice mates until they scatter in the weekdays, Yunho and Donghae on the train back to Jeollanam, and Sungmin, Junsu and Hyukjae back to in Goyang. Life is simple and unfettered and carefree, or _would_ be, says Hyukjae, if not for the horrible Math teacher that he and Junsu suffer under all week long.

Junsu and Hyukjae attend the same school; have been attending the same school, actually, since they were chubby-cheeked and didn't know reflection from refraction. They hang out with the same group of friends, take pictures on the same escalator, are friends with each other's extended family, and fall over themselves on the same ice rink. Donghae envies them more than he cares to admit, wishes sometimes that he could persuade his father to move the entire family to Goyang just so that he won't have to say goodbye to Hyukjae on Sunday evenings. He hates going away from Hyukjae because even at fifteen, even amid the camaraderie of their little SM group and the care of the older trainees and the comfortable friendship of his classmates in Mokpo, Hyukjae is special and he loves Hyukjae most.

Donghae is a steadfast believer that he and Hyukjae were always meant to be good friends. They get along too well not to be. He likes imagining that they were born under the same stars, that in the barely existent consciousness of his baby mind he'd cooed to Hyukjae and Hyukjae had cooed back to him, three hundred and forty kilometres away in Goyang. 

"But the star thing doesn't make sense," Hyukjae objects. "All of us were born under the same stars." 

Donghae is always slightly grieved that Hyukjae can't perceive how fated their connection is. 

"The only connection you two would have shared is wearing the same brand of diapers," Junsu says.

There's no point in arguing the case further, so Donghae gives up. Hyukjae isn't always so difficult. His best friend is Junsu and almost-best-friend is Sungmin and everyone knows that, but he smiles idiotically whenever Donghae runs into the practice room, cursing the slowness of the train in his rough Gwangju dialect. There's something beautiful and brightening about that stupid smile, something that makes Donghae perky and hyper and when the two of them are together, Yunho complains that their ridiculous amounts of energy exhaust him. 

"That's because you don't receive Hyukjae's stupid smile," Donghae tells him on the way back to Jeollanam, smug and prissy over Hyukjae's obvious favouritism. Yunho thinks he's crazy, but it's okay. 

The weekends are what really gets Donghae through the otherwise unbearably tough training regime of SM Entertainment. When the dance classes and vocal lessons are over, the night is free for them to do whatever they want. If it's too cold out, they huddle in kimbap restaurants and feast on galbitang. If it's not, he and Hyukjae induce Yunho and Junsu to play football with them, and occasionally Sungmin joins them as the goalkeeper when he's in the mood. Sungmin is a very good goalkeeper. He has an uncanny ability of knowing exactly which spot you're aiming for. Hyukjae never gets past him during penalties; his face is too much of an open book, too easy to read. He says left and everyone knows he'll go right. 

"That is why you'll never be a professional footballer," Yunho says.

On some nights they attack each other virtually in cybercafés, and Donghae usually lets Hyukjae win because Hyukjae looks pitiful whenever he loses. In July they discover a craze for badminton and table tennis, but soon get tired of hitting little spinning things with rackets; they turn to football again as the greatest love of their hobbies. Hyukjae supports Manchester United, and Donghae supports Liverpool, and so neither Junsu nor Sungmin nor Yunho are ever willing to watch a Manchester United versus Liverpool match with them. 

"Pure hell," Yunho pronounces.

"Got socked in the eye," Junsu grumbles. 

"Nobody cares that I like Blackburn Rovers," Sungmin sighs.

For all their football club rivalry, they love playing together. Running and getting mud on their sports shoes (Donghae saved up for three months to buy Hyukjae a Nike pair for his birthday; it took Hyukjae a month before he could bear to dirty them), hurling themselves bodily at each other when they score a goal, bouncing the ball on their knees and heads and pulling jerseys and discussing tactics (4-4-2 or 3-5-2 or 0-0-10; Donghae prefers the 'all-attack' playground tactic) and collapsing on the field hours later, damp and flushed with exercise, grass crushing under their bodies. 

The only thing they love more than football is dancing. They record their favourite dance performances on VHS tapes, replay them on the 22-inch television set in the practice room, study them, and then Hyukjae leads while Donghae follows, left arm this way, right knee that way, one two, turn, three four, jump, pop, feet squeaking on the polished floor. It's exhilarating when they get it right, when they dance in sync, and Donghae feels a vague sort of triumph that dance is where he beats Junsu out in; no matter how hard Junsu tries to keep up, he can never match up to the passion that Donghae and Hyukjae share in dancing, the joy they get from learning to move. 

Yunho objects that he loves to dance, too, and he doesn't like how they're always talking about _Donghae and Hyukjae_ when they fantasise about being Korea's most famous dancers. They're a team of five, not two, and they should be fair even in their fantasies. It should be Donghae and Hyukjae _and Yunho_. 

Donghae apologises for leaving him out; doesn't mention that when Hyukjae is dancing alongside him, breathing with him, casting little grins at him over his shoulder, it's a little like looking at the sun with eyes slightly averted; the dazzle makes everything else hard to perceive. 

At fifteen, Hyukjae is gawky limbs and sharp elbows and muddy shoes and dorky smiles, and Donghae loves him so much it hurts. But they're just boys, and they don't know what it means to love; they find the thought icky, they prefer to play football instead. 

… …

They're almost sixteen, and they're on the threshold of being men. Or they would be, except that Yunho and Sungmin are snoring on the grass beside them and Hyukjae's convinced that being a man is going to get him arrested and thrown into jail and everlastingly disgraced. 

"What if they sack us from SM?" he panics. "I'm never going to be a famous dancer! I'm going to be an _ex-convict_."

"Will you quit freaking out?" Junsu says, handing the bottle of Hite beer to Donghae. "Nobody gets thrown in jail for underage drinking, and anyway it's just one bottle."

"For the want of a nail the kingdom was lost," says Hyukjae solemnly, but they've stopped paying attention to him. 

Donghae holds the beer bottle in his hand. It had been cold and perspiring when Junsu brought it out of his bag five hours ago ("nicked it from the fridge at home," he'd confessed) but it's lukewarm now, shining dully in the glow of the streetlight. It feels harmless, just another bottled drink, just a glorified beverage. They'd been excited when they saw it five hours ago, but they're less sure now. 

"Come on," Junsu says, taking out a box of cigarettes that he'd pilfered from his dad's collection. "We're just _trying_ it. We're not going to get addicted."

Three puffs each, and they know that they're not going to get addicted. Donghae thinks he's going to die. Hyukjae turns red with coughing. Junsu snuffs the cigarette out on the grass. "Okay," he says with slight disappointment when they're more or less back to working condition. "The beer should be better. All the old guys like it. It's alcohol." 

It may be alcohol, but Donghae hates the bitter aftertaste. He can tell from the way that Hyukjae's eyes wrinkle that Hyukjae doesn't like it too, though Junsu remarks knowingly that it's very good beer. They must be pathetic sort of guys, Donghae concludes, not enjoying smoking or drinking. Rebelling isn't fun anymore. They're momentarily depressed. 

"You know," Hyukjae says, brightening up, "it's _good_ that we don't like it. Appa says that the world would be far less troubled if people didn't smoke or drink. Let's not do it again."

Junsu grumbles a little at having to give up his fantasy of some day leaning against his convertible blowing smoke into the air, cigarette in one hand and Hite beer bottle in the other, but Donghae thinks the resolution is cool. They'll be better than the smokers and drinkers of this world who create so much trouble. It's a nice promise to make, and they feel good about themselves after it; Hyukjae says that they're doing the world a civic-minded, socially responsible service. 

"Huh," says Sungmin, waking up in time to catch the last sentence. 

Hyukjae leans over to pat Sungmin's head. "We're being civic-minded, hyung." 

"Oh," Sungmin says. "Okay." He goes back to sleep. Hyukjae puts his arms around Sungmin and yawns. Donghae feels jealous for a moment at how Hyukjae loves cuddling Sungmin, but he forgets it the next moment because Hyukjae looks funny sleeping with his mouth open. 

"…Grass? In his mouth?" Junsu says, looking at him. 

Donghae considers the prank. "Nah," he says regretfully. "We just did a civic-minded thing. Let's be civic-minded for the whole of tonight." 

"Okay," Junsu says, and goes to sleep beside Yunho. 

… …

Flashes of memory are interspersed with the blur of their adolescent years; doing civic-minded things, grabbing each other into headlocks on the sidewalks, dancing and dancing and dancing, cutting Sungmin's hair when he's asleep because he's too lazy to go to the barber. Sungmin is furious, but Donghae, Hyukjae and Junsu think it's the funniest thing they've ever done. On rare times Junsu doesn't join them, and then Donghae gets Hyukjae to himself; he remembers those times best, pays careful attention to remembering. He remembers staying over at Hyukjae's house, meeting his pretty sister Sora and playing computer games till four a.m., when Hyukjae's so brain-dead that he falls over in sleep with the game controller still in his hands. Donghae has fun blasting Hyukjae's character until his life bar depletes. 

He remembers waking up on the floor sometime in the middle of the night (or morning) with a crick in his neck and an ache in his shoulder region, tripping over Hyukjae on his way to the toilet, peeing tiredly when Hyukjae opens the door wide and stumbles in because Donghae had been too sleepy to remember to lock the door. 

"You're in the way," Hyukjae mumbles, nudging Donghae to the side and starting to pull down his pants. Then he blinks, looks at Donghae again with widened eyes, and yells. His yell pierces straight through the drowsiness in Donghae's mind and gives him an instant headache. Sora shouts at them from downstairs wanting to know what the hell they're doing up there, stabbing at each other with shavers? They tell her later that Hyukjae had squirted toothpaste all over Donghae.

"Don't think she'll want to know the true story," Hyukjae says. 

It's not like nudity was a big thing with them, Donghae remembers. All Hyukjae's modesty doesn't stop him from rushing into the toilet when Donghae is bathing and grabbing his clothes away so Donghae has to run from the toilet to Hyukjae's bedroom with the towel around his waist. They shower together one night after a dance practice when they're too tired and smelly to argue over who gets to go first; they drop the soap in lunging for it, get shampoo foam on each other, take turns under the shower cap. When the water runs cold they realise that there's still shampoo in their hair, and they almost burst a lung trying to contain their laughter when they try to fit their heads under the basin tap for warm water. 

"Dude, you look _stupid_ ," Hyukjae chortles.

"Dude, you're doing the same thing as I am," Donghae retaliates. 

Hyukjae smells of green tea shampoo and indefinable soap when they huddle together on the bed (at some point over the past year or so they'd decided that they were just going to share the bed instead of constantly fighting over who gets the floor) and Donghae wants to rest his nose in the curve of Hyukjae's neck and shoulder, wants to snuggle up to him and breathe into him and fall asleep against him. 

"Don't fidget around," Hyukjae says before his eyes close. Hyukjae's body gives off distinct signs once he's asleep; he breathes heavily, occasionally grinds his teeth, and when he's sure that Hyukjae is unconscious, Donghae puts his forehead against Hyukjae's shoulder and lets himself sleep too. 

They wake up from the happy blur of adolescence all too soon when Yunho and Junsu leave them to debut in SM's new boyband Dong Bang Shin Ki.

… …

Hyukjae and Sungmin are praying beside him, and all around him people are raising their hands and speaking in tongues. The worship leader is praying out loud, something about Korea and unbelievers and let your mighty reign be seen and acknowledged by all, and Donghae should really be paying attention. He should be praying too. He should be feeling God in the place, too. But he can't immerse himself into the atmosphere; his thoughts keep skittering off elsewhere to non-holy matters. 

To Yunho and Junsu surrounded by fans everywhere they go now. To Yunho breaking up with his girlfriend to avoid any hint of scandal. To how stricken Hyukjae and Sungmin had looked when they realised they weren't going to debut with Junsu. To how bitter farewell feels, even when it's farewell to days and times instead of people. 

A woman in front of him starts crying, and it's distracting. Donghae tries to pay attention to what's going on. He apologises to God for his current frame of mind; it's not that he doesn't want to worship, it's just that there are too many other things on his mind right now. God, please don't let Hyukjae be sad anymore. Come to to think of it, why didn't You let him debut with Junsu? That's what they've been praying for. It's mean not granting them their prayer. Hyukjae deserves to debut with Junsu, and they deserve to be famous together. What's with this planning, God?

It's snowing when they leave the night service; misted windows, streets covered with thin layers of damp. If they're not careful, they'll slip and fall. Little snowflakes land on Hyukjae's pink nose. He's a big puffy bundle in his yellow bomber jacket and woollen beanie and Donghae covers Hyukjae's cheeks with his palms to warm his face, thinks suddenly that he wouldn't mind kissing Hyukjae's mouth. 

Sungmin defuses the thought before it takes shape in Donghae's mind. "Let's get something to eat, I'm hungry after all the praying." 

Neither Hyukjae nor Donghae are hungry when they reach the kimbap restaurant, so they decide to share galbitang among themselves. They're three now, not five, and they don't need to order two servings. There's something very comforting about the beef ribs and hot steaming soup when people are passing by outside with hands in pockets and scarves tucked around their necks. Hyukjae finishes up the rice (he's the type who eats even if he isn't hungry) and Sungmin sucks at the ribs until all the juice is gone. Sungmin is always economical; he believes that if you pay for a meal, you should get the most out of it. Donghae says he doesn't care about getting the most out of his money, he can't eat and that's that.

"Donghae-yah," Hyukjae says, peering at him through narrowed eyes, "why have you been so down lately?"

Donghae plays with his chopsticks, ding ding ding on the empty metal rice bowl, and Sungmin says, "Is it about Yunho and Junsu?" 

"Don't be sad," Hyukjae says, reaching across the table to pat Donghae's hand. "Our time will come soon. We've been training for so many months already, and there are rumours from management…"

"It's not that," Donghae says. He turns his hand over and their palms lie flat against each other, Hyukjae's warm, Donghae's cold from the surface of the table. He wonders how Hyukjae would react if he rubbed his thumb in circles on the back of Hyukjae's hand. "It's just, when I think of how you and Junsu wanted to debut together, I feel sad." 

Hyukjae worries his bottom lip. His eyes are big and honest and Donghae looks away from them, studies the now-lukewarm soup and metal chopsticks gleaming cold under the florescent light. 

"Don't be," Hyukjae says eventually. "Junsu and I wanted to debut together, but it's not going to happen anymore and you know…" he pauses, clears his throat a couple of times. "It's not just Junsu. I would be happy too if I could debut with you and Sungmin hyung. We've been together so much lately that I feel…you know. It would be nice, if the three of us could remain together." 

There's a faint, uncomfortable blush working its way up from Hyukjae's cheeks to his ears as he says that, a blush like a burn, and suddenly Donghae leans over the table and hugs him. Hyukjae doesn't fit very well in his arms, all bones and angles and knobs, but Donghae hugs him tighter, presses his cheek against Hyukjae's. "We'll debut together," he says into Hyukjae's ear. 

"Yeah," says Hyukjae, not very enthusiastically. "You're going to knock the soup over." 

"You guys are so sappy," Sungmin says. "Will you sit properly before the whole restaurant looks at us?"

Donghae's grinning wide enough to span the moon when he sits down again. He thinks his heart might burst out of his chest, and he's not entirely sure why he's so happy. "Hyungie, you ate up all the ribs!"

"You said you weren't hungry!" Sungmin says defensively.

Donghae orders another galbitang, and this time he finishes the whole thing by himself. Hyukjae says with some awe that it's impressive how quickly Donghae can swing from one end of a pendulum to the next. 

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Sungmin says, mispronouncing 'Jekyll' as 'Jacker'. They're laughing at him, and Donghae puts his hand on his cheek. Thinks he can still feel the impression of Hyukjae's skin on his.

… …

That night, when they're huddled in bed together, he asks Hyukjae what he thinks of homosexuality. 

Hyukjae blinks a couple of times, bewildered and sleepy. "It's sinful, isn't it? Pastor says that God condemns homosexuality."

Donghae doesn't have an answer for that. Pastor does say so. All the church leaders do, in fact, including his youth leader and cell group leader and his own parents, who think that gays are 'disgusting'. If all the moral authorities in his life say that God condemns homosexuality, then it has to be true because it's not possible that all the authorities are wrong.

"Why are you suddenly asking that, anyway?" 

"I just thought of it, that's all." 

"You think of weird things." Hyukjae yawns and shifts around a little. He's too used to Donghae's random questions to give it much thought. "Don't steal my blanket tonight."

"I never do," Donghae retorts. " _You're_ the blanket hog." 

Hyukjae's reply is a grunt. It's been a long day, and he's tired out. His breaths get heavier in a moment, his entire body slackens. Donghae feels his mind blurring, but he's still partially awake, thinking of pink noses and red mouths and cold cheeks and blushes like burns. There's a face, of course, bringing everything together, but he refuses to focus on the whole, just on the parts. That way, he doesn't have to see what he's really looking at. 

He's almost asleep when Hyukjae sighs and turns over a little, rubbing his hand absently over Donghae's stomach. Donghae jerks under his touch, opens his eyes wide in the darkness. He might be trying to breathe and forgetting how. He's acutely aware of the feel of Hyukjae's fingers through his shirt, of blood rushing downwards, of the trace of Hyukjae's breath on his neck. His underwear tightens. He wants to throw off Hyukjae's hand and push himself up into it all at the same time, and he thinks he might die like this, trying to remain still when everything in him is screaming to move, when he's so hard that the pain is almost unbearable.

He wants to reach down and lift the waistband of his underwear, push it down an inch maybe, give himself some form of release, but he's afraid that the movement might jerk Hyukjae aware. Hyukjae would be traumatised by this. Donghae himself is traumatised by it, by the intensity of his desire for Hyukjae and the effect that Hyukjae has on him, crazy and dizzy and dazed and oh god he has never felt like this before, not even when that pretty cheerleader in school bent down to give him a view straight into her chest. He starts breathing rhythmically, deep and forced, in and out, straining to think of the most unromantic things he has ever encountered. It might work. Just a little longer, and maybe… 

"Donghae-yah," Hyukjae says sleepily, and Donghae jumps a mile. "Are you okay? You're breathing really heavily." 

"Yes, no, I…" Donghae squeezes his eyes shut in terror. "I, um, I'm going to the toilet."

"Uh," Hyukjae says. He sounds confused, but he's more asleep than awake and he doesn't really care. He withdraws his hand and turns over, rubbing his forehead into the pillow, and Donghae bolts from the bed, practically runs out of the room and across the corridor into the toilet where he locks himself in without turning on the light. 

He doesn't want to see himself. He doesn't want to know that this is him, that he can't sleep beside his best friend without getting aroused, that he's so attracted to _another guy_. He continues his rhythmic breathing and forces his thoughts away but nothing's working and it's still Hyukjae he sees, still Hyukjae he wants so badly to touch. His pants are down, fingers trembling to push his underwear away. He tastes tears on his lips, and he tells himself, it'll only be for this one night, just this once, and never again. 

He doesn't want to know that it's 'Hyukjae' he whispers in the thick silence of the toilet when he comes, hot and sticky over himself, damp saltiness on his tongue. 

… …

He's not gay, he thinks. He doesn't want to dress up as a girl and he likes being a guy and doing what guys do. He likes girls. He has never thought of being attracted to guys, and he wants to get married as soon as he's grown up to a beautiful, pure-hearted girl who will adore him and make cute fat babies with him. Guys don't figure in his plans for the future, and definitely not Hyukjae, with his smelly feet and arms and legs like sticks. Not Hyukjae, with his silly smile and high-pitched laughter and annoying habit of warming his cold feet on your calves. 

Not Hyukjae, even if Donghae jerks off in the middle of the night to the image of Hyukjae's face and the memory of his touch. It can't be Hyukjae. This is just a one-off thing, a weird side effect of growing sexuality. He'll be back to normal once it's over. 

He doesn't allow himself to think that maybe there won't be a normal. The next time the pretty cheerleader (he can't remember her name; it might be Sookjoo or Jooeun) shows him her chest again, he pulls her in around the waist and kisses her, quick and desperate. She giggles, tries to blush, but the kiss tastes like cardboard. 

Maybe that is the normal. That is where people reside. That is where he has to find his way back to; the normal needs and wants, the fragrant hair and high voices and tiny waists and cardboard kisses.

… …

It's surprisingly easy to avoid Hyukjae and Sungmin the next weekend. They take the same dancing and singing classes, and so it's difficult to avoid them in the practice rooms, but an excuse presents itself for the spare hours in the shape of Kim Kibum, a younger trainee who'd come over from America a year ago with homesickness and English-accented Korean. Kibum doesn't hate dancing (doesn't, to Donghae's mind, hate anything in fact; Kibum seems so apathetic), but he doesn't understand how it works; how there can be certain ways of following beats in a song with your body. Donghae breathes a prayer of thanks to a still-understanding God and offers to help Kibum out.

Kibum is quiet and reserved, the type of person who can eat lunch by himself and not feel lonely. He's different from Hyukjae, who jabbers on about anything given half a chance and gets bits of vegetables stuck in his teeth and wails if someone steals a spoonful from his plate. Kibum is self-contained and too mature for his age and Donghae likes him very much, enjoys being in his company and listening to his occasional talk, but he can't stop himself from thinking about Hyukjae and Sungmin sitting with a couple of older trainees at the other end of the staff canteen, most likely bickering and stealing food from each other. Sungmin would be poking the egg yolk on Hyukjae's kimchi fried rice and Hyukjae would be retaliating by eating as much of Sungmin's ramyeon in as little time as possible, and the hyungs would be yelling at them to stop it and shut up wailing, Hyukjae, if you want to leave this table alive with all your teeth still intact, here have some of my drink you screamy little idiot. Donghae falls into a reverie and wakes up out of it only when Kibum says, "Hyung, why aren't you eating with Hyukjae hyung today?"

"Um." Donghae casts his mind around for a reason. "Because I'm eating with you?"

Kibum gives him an odd look, but doesn't question further. That's the nice thing about Kibum; he knows when not to pursue certain questions. 

Hyukjae comes up to them towards the end of lunch with Kim Jongwoon, one of the older trainees whom Donghae personally thinks has the best voice in SM. "Donghae-yah, Sungminnie hyung and I will be going for karaoke tonight with Jongwoon hyung and Youngwoon hyung. Do you want to come?" He looks at Kibum. "Kibummie, you can come too, if you want. You can sing the English songs!" 

"I'm sorry, I don't really like karaoke," Kibum says apologetically, and Hyukjae lets him off because he's Kibum and they've all learned a long time ago that when Kibum says 'no', he will not be budged into changing it to a 'yes'. He turns to Donghae, and his face is bright and smiling and Donghae wants so much to take that face between his hands and kiss his mouth, to find out if kisses could taste like anything other than cardboard, that he frightens himself. 

"I'll stay with Kibummie tonight," he says so stiffly that Hyukjae is taken aback.

"Okay," he says, and Donghae forces himself to turn away from the hurt on Hyukjae's face.

He spends Saturday night with Kibum in the dorm that Kibum shares with three other trainees, lying on the floor beside Kibum's bed talking randomly and listening to English music on the CD player until Kibum falls asleep. Donghae tries to sleep too, but he's thinking of Hyukjae again; what would he be doing now, having jajangmyeon by the Han River or playing video games in Sungmin's house, maybe? Getting his characters blown up and shaking his controller to see if anything's wrong with it? 

Donghae closes his eyes and turns over, burrowing his nose into the pillow. He's fine without Hyukjae. That's what normal people are, they're okay spending a night away from their best friend. He's normal, and he won't miss Hyukjae anymore. 

… …

He contrives to avoid Hyukjae again the next weekend until Hyukjae's staring at him from across the practice room, mouth in a straight line, eyebrows wrinkling. Sungmin manages to grab a hold of him right after class ends, asks him what the hell is wrong, and Donghae almost confesses right there, almost turns to Hyukjae and scream across the width of space and floor that he's sorry and he doesn't mean to hurt him and it's not what you think, but fear stops him. 

"I'm okay, hyung. I've got other things to do this weekend, you two go ahead without me."

"We could wait for you," Sungmin says, but Donghae wriggles out of his hold and says no, no, go, please go, and Sungmin does. Hyukjae avoids his gaze as he walks out of the practice room and Donghae reflects miserably how simple it is for things to become so complicated. 

He isn't prepared for Hyukjae to show up half-frozen at his house on Thursday night, hands tucked into his coat pockets, backpack hanging so low off his back that it looks like it's about to slide off. "I hope you don't mind," he says almost shyly. "I took the train here after I finished school and um, yeah. I got lost walking around the neighbourhood trying to find your house. It is a very hard house to find," he adds solemnly.

Donghae doesn't know what to say, and Hyukjae flushes when Donghae stays silent, grips the handles of his backpack uncertainly. 

"Maybe you boys might want to go upstairs to Donghae's room?" Donghae's mother says. 

Hyukjae shrugs off his backpack, takes a few sips of hot brown rice tea and scrambles up the stairs behind Donghae. The room is in a mess, the combination of the after-effects of sandstorm and tornado and messy living habits of a teenaged boy. At any other time than this, Hyukjae would make disparaging remarks, but now he only steps carefully over the scattered magazines and clothes on the floor, reaches out absently to push a drawer back into place. Donghae looks at him, awkward and red and thin under his brown coat, so thin, so strangely vulnerable, and he pushes himself backwards so that he won't reach out, back and back until he bumps against the window sill. 

"Donghae-yah," Hyukjae begins, standing in the middle of the room with piles of clothes around his feet, "did I do something wrong to make you angry at me? I'm sorry if I did."

"No," Donghae says, stumbling over his words a little. "It…I was, um. It has nothing to do with you, Hyukjae. You didn't do anything. It's just that I offered to help Kibummie with his dancing. He has a lot of problems with it."

"But I…" Hyukjae scratches the back of his neck agitatedly. "Sungminnie hyung and I…we thought you could join us at night. You know, like always."

"I…I stayed with Kibum." 

"Oh." Hyukjae drops his hand back into his pocket. "Will you be with him this weekend too?"

"I guess so," Donghae says, gripping the sill. 

"We were planning on ice skating," Hyukjae murmurs, and his face looks so bewildered that Donghae wants to cry. But he doesn't, and so Hyukjae continues standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, clothes at his feet. "Um, hyung and I will be at the ice rink anyway. You and Kibummie can join us if you want." 

"I'll ask him."

"Okay." Hyukjae nods. "I'll see you this weekend, then." 

"Going already?" Donghae's mother asks in surprise when they come down. "Hyukjae-yah, you're not staying the night?" 

"No, I'm taking the last train back to Goyang," Hyukjae says. He picks up his backpack and thanks everyone politely. Donghae walks him out to the main lane and watches as he trudges off, skirts around the house next to them and vanishes. 

"He came here just for ten minutes?" Donghae's mother asks disbelievingly. 

"Umma…," Donghae begins, but he doesn't finish. He's too busy thinking that Hyukjae had been so unhappy he'd come down all the way from Goyang to apologise. He doesn't know how he'll ever be able to make up to Hyukjae for so much needless misunderstanding. He doesn't know, except that he has to stamp this desire out of himself even if he can't figure out, for the moment, how that's supposed to happen. 

… …

Days of spring and summer pass into each other and then it's autumn, three months away from 2005. Hyukjae loves the fall, says he can't think of anything clearer and fresher than autumn days. Kibum says he doesn't like the dead leaves. 

"Do you always have to be so _morbid_?" Donghae asks, poking Kibum in the side. 

Hyukjae laughs. They're almost okay now. In fact, sometimes it feels like they're actually okay, that everything was resolved when Donghae and Kibum showed up at the ice skating rink and Hyukjae had been so thankful that he'd apologised again for whatever he'd done to cause the problem. But Donghae is honest and he thinks _almost_ because even though they don't talk about it, the shadow of it lies between them, nudges them almost imperceptibly apart. 

"Kibummie is the most grown up of all of us. He sees the dead things," Hyukjae says. His arm is around Sungmin and they're laughing down the concrete sidewalk, matching steps, cracking dead leaves under their sports shoes, sharing a messy hotdog and getting ketchup on their clothes. They've grown closer in the last few months and Donghae thinks he has somehow fallen short; has, in a sense, relinquished his position in Hyukjae's life to Sungmin. It's Sungmin whom Hyukjae reaches for now, whispers silly little observations to, discusses the latest Premier League football fixtures with. 

It is, Donghae realises, a case of Junsu leaving him physically and Donghae leaving him emotionally but Sungmin staying. 

Kibum draws close to him as they follow Sungmin and Hyukjae down the streets towards the SM building. "Hyung, if you don't want them to find out, you should stop looking at them like that."

Donghae blinks at him. "What? Like what?" 

Kibum sighs patiently, gestures towards Sungmin and Hyukjae. "How jealous you are of _them_."

"I'm not jealous," Donghae says immediately. 

"Your face shows otherwise," Kibum says. "You know, hyung, you can always walk with them. I don't mind walking alone."

"No," Donghae says, because he is a man of responsibility and he will never let anyone walk alone. That's the Liverpool motto and all Reds live and die by it. "Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone," he sings, and in front of them Hyukjae plugs his ears with his fingers, shouts back that he doesn't want to know. Donghae laughs at Hyukjae and Kibum looks from the back of Hyukjae's head to Donghae's face, bright and happy in an instant. 

"Suit yourself," he says, shrugging. "But just stop looking at them like that if you don't want them to know."

… …

They're going to debut together, all three of them and Kibum, in a rotational group with eight other members. Literally the biggest boyband ever, Sungmin says, laughing, but Donghae hears the uncertainty in Sungmin's tone. How are they ever going to get themselves noticed in a twelve-member band, especially when there are flamboyant characters like the infamous Kim Heechul who once walked out of a dance practice because the dance instructor called his moves 'gay', and the seemingly perfect Choi Siwon who is constantly bombarded with female attention? 

"Nobody is going to remember my name," Hyukjae says, and then, as though to prove how right he is, he goes and changes his. 

There are proper reasons for the name change, of course, legitimate reasons, but for a few days Donghae doesn't think it's right that Hyukjae should no longer be Hyukjae but some other person with a different name for the camera.

"I'll still call you Hyukjae," he says, almost wistfully. 

"I don't mind Eunhyuk," Sungmin says. "It sounds cooler than Hyukjae!" 

"Call me whatever you want," Hyukjae says, drawing out the choreography of their debut song for the hundredth time, this time on a napkin. He's obsessed with the choreography. He probably draws it in his sleep, too, on the bedsheets. "What's in a name, anyway?" 

"A Hyukjae by any other name would smell just as bad," Sungmin agrees. 

… …

They talk again, _really_ talk again, the night before their debut on Inkigayo. For months they've been in and out of practice rooms, recording studios, filming and photography sets, subsisting on three hours' worth of sleep per day and running purely on adrenaline. They're going to be Super Junior 05, they're going to be stars, and excitement and nervousness colours everything from moving out of their homes to learning new dance routines but mostly Donghae's scared shitless.

He's not old enough, he thinks. Maybe he's not old enough to be having his life spin entirely away from what it has always been.

Their leader, Park Jungsu, who has long been big brother to eighty percent of the SM trainee population, says it's okay, he'll take care of him, and so will all the other hyungs. This is what you've been working for all these years. Talk to your dad, talk to me, and everything will be fine.

Jungsu is trustworthy and so Donghae trusts him, but he's still afraid and he misses his dad whom he hasn't seen since he moved to Seoul a fortnight ago, and the winter sky outside the living room window is formless and blank and cold. This is his last night as Lee Donghae, unknown trainee of SM. From here it's all uphill or downhill, and he's not sure if he's ready to face the ride. 

The sofa dips and he turns to see Hyukjae settling down beside him. Hyukjae has a solo dance tomorrow. If he messes up, there will be a hundred index fingers ready to point in his direction. The pressure is intense, and Donghae knows that Hyukjae has been spending the last four nights in the practice room dancing ten seconds over and over, forcing the memory of the dance into his bones so that even if his mind freezes, his body won't. 

Not that Hyukjae has ever frozen before. In the silence, his hand finds Hyukjae's and clings.

"How are we going to adapt to this, Hyukkie?" he says softly. "How are we going to get used to this sort of pressure…to things changing so much?" 

"I don't know," Hyukjae says. "But you know…we just have to find a way to get through it. Junsu and Yunho hyung did."

"I want us to remain the same," Donghae says. "I don't want us to change. Fundamentally." 

"I'll be with you," Hyukjae says. "It's less easy for two people to change than for one."

Donghae grips his hand. "Hyukjae-yah."

"Yeah?"

He takes a moment to breathe, then pushes out the words one by one. "I'm sorry for…everything. This is really late but I'm sorry for what I did…avoiding you, and not spending time with you, and making you think that I didn't want to be your friend anymore. I know I made you unhappy. I didn't mean to, but I did and so I just want to say…I'm sorry. To me you're still my best friend." 

Even in the darkness, Hyukjae's smile is blinding and Donghae still can't look away from it, still sees it as dazzling as the sun. "It's okay," Hyukjae says. 

Jungsu prods them awake the next morning. Half his body aches and Hyukjae's weight has erased all feeling in his left arm, but Donghae buries his head in Hyukjae's chest and holds on for as long as he can. The world is cold sunlight and warm Hyukjae. It's been a long time since they last slept curled up with each other, but they haven't lost the knack. Old feelings still remain. 

… …

Later on that day, they line up behind the exit waiting for the stage director to say 'go'. The singing on stage reverberates back to them in muffled, indistinguishable sound and Jungsu peeks out of the door, says that there are many sapphire blue balloons out there waiting for them so there's no need to worry, they have lots of support, don't be nervous and let's just do what we have to do. 

"I'm so nervous, I think my tongue is going to fall out once I start singing," says Hyukjae, shivering.

Sungmin hugs him and Hyukjae stretches out a sweaty palm towards Donghae. Donghae catches hold of it and looks into Hyukjae's eyes. "We're in this together, Hyukkie." 

"That's right," says Sungmin. "This is what we've always wanted and we're _here_ at last. We're going to debut together. Everything will be fine, there's no need to be nervous. Junsu and Yunho are cheering us on, too." 

"Ten seconds and you're on," the stage manager says.

Hyukjae takes a deep breath, pulls his and Donghae's linked hands towards Sungmin. Sungmin grips their hands and they share a smile, quick and bright, before the seconds are out and they're running out together in the dark towards the coloured lights and heat of the stage. 

… …

Work is almost terrible at times, soul-numbing and bone-breaking and three months into their debut their youngest member, Ryeowook, collapses on a staircase and goes to sleep once the pressure of standing is taken from his legs. They can't bear to wake him, so Jungsu lifts Ryeowook onto Jongwoon's back and Jongwoon piggybacks him to the company bus where all of them promptly fall dead asleep once it starts moving.

Sometimes they can't fall asleep in the bus because the camera is in their faces and Donghae has learned how to smile and look chirpy even though there are a hundred tiny men hammering away at his head and jaw. He has to block them out, all those yelling hammering little men, and smile and wave and say hello, I'm Super Junior's Lee Donghae, and laugh when Youngwoon or Jungsu says something funny.

In time he learns to laugh, too, when the tone of what they're saying sounds funny. It's easier to pay attention to the inflections of their voices instead of what they're actually saying. 

"Not that we're really saying anything worth listening to, anyway," Youngwoon yawns when Donghae tells him. "Jungsu hyung just blabbers, and I blabber when he stops blabbering." 

"We have the gift of the blabber," Jungsu says. 

Youngwoon and Jungsu quickly become popular as a fan pairing, _KangTeuk_ , a smush of their stage names, and Donghae doesn't get it at first. Why would fans want to see boys being paired with boys? Jungsu explains that it's because they can't be paired up with girls; the fans wouldn't like it. Wait a little longer and you'll see more 'pairings' forming. As usual, Jungsu is perfectly right. 

Heechul and Hankyung, already close from their trainee days, quickly become one of the popular 'couples'. Ryeowook teams up with Jongwoon, and Donghae finds himself stuck with Hyukjae, whom he has been hugging and kicking for the past four years and whom he is now apparently obligated to hug and kick for the fans. 

"It's kind of _weird_ , isn't it?" Hyukjae says. "This whole 'couple' thing." 

"Seeing as you two are practically together all the time as it is, I don't see what's so weird about it," Jungsu says. "I do find it weird that Donghae kisses you in bed, though." 

"It wasn't a _kiss_ ," Hyukjae protests. "It was just a…a…his lips accidentally touched my cheek!" 

"His lips accidentally touch your cheek very, very often," Heechul points out. "Even when you're sitting apart, he leans over and sticks out his mouth aiming directly for your cheek and, you know, maybe that's an accident?" 

"Hyukjae has nice cheeks?" Donghae says. "So do you, hyung."

Heechul points to his own cheek. "Touch this and you're dead."

"Don't worry, I only aim for Hyukjae's," Donghae says, drawing a smiley emoticon in the air. 

Hyukjae's red to the tips of his ears when he makes a disgustingly sappy face at Donghae. "Hi, honey." 

"Hi, darling," Donghae returns, and wonders if those tips of his ears are as hot as they look. It's cute, really. There aren't any girls (or guys, for that matter) he knows who blush to their ears. 

Fanservice is one area of work that he finds easy. Too easy, in fact, because hugging Hyukjae is like second nature and the fans obviously sense their camaraderie, scream themselves hoarse whenever he touches Hyukjae or makes some offhand remark about how he punishes Hyukjae with his lips (which, he thinks, he would actually do just to see Hyukjae's ears turn red. Nothing else, even though Hyukjae's mouth might be the prettiest, plumpest, most kissable little mouth he has ever seen and Donghae usually stops thinking by this point). 

Hyukjae may be embarrassed, but he doesn't object when Donghae touches him on screen or crawls into bed with him in early mornings, wrapping arms around him and breathing against his neck. Sometimes Donghae's lips touch Hyukjae's cheek or shoulder, but he tells himself it's just a coincidence, his lips just _happened_ to touch Hyukjae's body, and Hyukjae doesn't ask, anyway. It's not a kiss unless Hyukjae thinks it is. 

In the bewildering mess of Seoul and rushing schedules and meeting all kinds of people from directors to floor managers to lowly production assistants, Donghae thinks he might freeze if there wasn't Hyukjae beside him. Hyukjae grinning, yawning, laughing, plotting their next attempt at blowing up the dorm. Hyukjae who doesn't push him away, even though he may not reach out so readily to touch and hug and, in Donghae's case, punch and kick. They dance together, rap together, and whenever Donghae turns around he sees Hyukjae, setting the kitchen stove on fire with him, over-boiling the water meant for the hyungs' instant ramyeon soup, burning a couple of dinners, smashing a few plates while mock fighting each other. They turn the dorm upside down and hang off each other in front of the cameras and work on dances together and the fans praise their chemistry in hundreds of comments on their fancafes. 

"They need to stop praising you," Jungsu says exasperatedly when Donghae upsets coke all over the floor by leaning over to mock strangle Hyukjae. "You're going to blow up this building and this neighbourhood and maybe the whole of South Korea if they continue praising you. And insurance won't cover self-inflicted damage, too." 

They're too busy choking each other to reply. 

It may be acting on Hyukjae's part, it may be for the cameras or for the members and managers who regard them with a lot of amusement and a little playful suspicion, but in that starting year work is terrible and wonderful and Donghae thinks he'll never be happier than this.

… …

It goes all downhill from there. 

They're officially Super Junior now. They have a thirteenth member, their new magnae Kyuhyun who made a mess out of the instant ramyeon that Shindong asked him to make and so has been relieved of all cooking duties. They've released their biggest hit so far, a song that rings in their heads even when they sleep ("cause I can't stop…," Jongwoon had begun singing at breakfast that morning and promptly gotten a kitchen towel thrown at his head), and girls love them, buy expensive gifts and hold up banners screaming whenever they see them. 

They've started filming for a new TV series, Mini Drama, and Jungsu laughs when the new theme of 'dangerous friendship' is announced, laughs so hard that he's almost breathless hanging off the arm of the chair. 

"The fans will like this," he says, and Donghae thinks he can learn a lot from Jungsu about what fans like. 

"The fans like us to like each other, don't they?" Hyukjae says. 

"As long as we don't really _like_ each other," Youngwoon says, and they don't have to ask him what he means. 

The four of them are sitting around a table, Jungsu, Youngwoon, Hyukjae and Donghae, the 'Pearl Blue' team, discussing ideas for the 'dangerous friendship' drama when Hyukjae suddenly says, so earnestly that they stop to listen to him, "In the past, I used to like Donghae."

Donghae yells before he thinks; he's not sure what he yells, but it makes Hyukjae jump a little. 

"Not anymore, not now," Hyukjae says quickly, "now I only like you as a friend." 

"Of course you do," Youngwoon says. "It would be troublesome if you didn't like him. Okay, here's what I think we should do, a scene where the four of us are in a hotel room…"

Donghae can't figure out how Jungsu and Youngwoon can be so nonchalant when Hyukjae just _confessed_ to him, damn it, when all along he's been thinking that Hyukjae never thought of him in that way and his heart is beating so erratically he can barely breathe oh God dear God this has to be wrong and immoral but he's so happy he's careening straight into the sun and he isn't going to burn, that's how happy he is, and everything is going to be amazing and why is Hyukjae acting so nonchalant about it too?

The discussion is over and he can't really remember what they've decided on, but it's okay. The manager will brief him on it later. He grabs Hyukjae's wrist as they're walking to the company van, leans in close so Jungsu and Youngwoon, talking hard in front of them, won't hear. 

"Hyukjae-yah, was that…I'm sorry I yelled but I was so surprised…was it…"

Hyukjae blinks at him. "What?" 

"That…thing back there…oh," Donghae says, because he suddenly understands and he drops Hyukjae's wrist.

"What do you think the fans would say about it?" Hyukjae says, giggling a little. "It's real but _not real_. I'm getting it, Donghae-yah. Do you think PD-nim will leave it in for the broadcast? Your reaction was so great, I think he will!"

Donghae tries not to lash out, tries so desperately because Hyukjae doesn't have a clue what he just did and it's not his fault, he doesn't _know_ , but all the willpower in the world can't stop him from muttering, "You fucker." 

" _What_? What did you just say?" Hyukjae stops walking, eyes wide. 

"When the fuck did you become so conniving and fucking _fake_?" Donghae says, fighting to keep the level of his voice low, fighting to stop the words, but they pour out of him regardless; "you weren't like that before. You didn't fucking know how to play with people's feelings before."

"But Donghae-yah, I'm not playing with people's feelings, it's what the fans want…"

"Stop using the fans as an excuse!"

"Donghae!"

"I don't like what you've become," Donghae says, his fists trembling, ignoring Jungsu and Youngwoon hurrying up to them. "You've become this…faker called _Eunhyuk_ and I don't want to know you anymore." 

After that Youngwoon's pulling him away, saying if you want to fight god damn it don't do it in the M-net building where everyone can see you, and Hyukjae's being pulled along by Jungsu what's going on, Hyukjae, what's going on, hurt and confused and almost crying and Donghae turns away from him, doesn't want to see the bewildered tears on Hyukjae's face. 

… …

Hyukjae's eyes are still swollen from crying and Sungmin's still fluttering back and forth from Donghae to Hyukjae in panic when the call comes from Mokpo and Donghae's rushing back three hours to see his dad. 

He's in time but he almost wishes he wasn't, because sitting by his dad on the hospital bed watching the heartbeat rate drop from 70 to 60 to 40 to 20 to 0 is the worst thing that he has ever had to do. He's still blank when his aunt pulls him off the bed, when the nurses put the sheet over his dad's head and wheel him out of the ward, all the way from the wake nights to the funeral service to What A Friend We Have in Jesus to the very end, the last moment, when the coffin is already sealed and about to be cremated. 

And then it feels so terrible, so final, that he begins to cry. 

"You have to go on being a singer, Donghae-yah," his brother Donghwa says, gripping him as Donghae sobs helplessly and hopelessly against his chest. "Appa always wanted you to be a singer and so you've _got_ to go on."

Heechul hugs him once before he goes back to Seoul, driver speeding to get him back in time for his next schedule. They keep him in the dark about Heechul's accident until he arrives at the dorm a week later, head aching, to see Hyukjae waiting downstairs in the car park for him. He thinks that Hyukjae looks paler than usual, thinner like he hasn't eaten in days, and he instinctively reaches out to support Hyukjae when Hyukjae begins telling him about how badly Heechul had been injured _don't worry though he's fine now, he's out of danger_ and then Hyukjae's the one holding him instead, supporting him as Donghae bends over his arm and vomits onto the road. 

It's Hyukjae who piggybacks him up to the dorm and deposits him on the sofa, opens the windows wider for fresh air. It's Hyukjae who brings a pail of water down to the car park and washes the vomit down into the nearest drain so that the cleaner tomorrow morning doesn't have to deal with the mess. It's Hyukjae who heats milk and dips bread into it and feeds Donghae slowly, one bite at a time, massaging his arms and legs and shoulders afterwards until the nausea goes away.

Donghae looks around at the apartment, at the familiar walls and knickknacks and scattered possessions of nine boys living haphazardly together. He hears Sungmin's muffled voice somewhere; realises that whoever's in the dorm now is hiding out in the big bedroom keeping away until he's ready to see them. He appreciates it. 

"I'll sleep with you tonight, if you want," Hyukjae says. 

He does want. Sungmin has left his bed empty for Hyukjae, but they huddle up together instead on Donghae's bed, wrapped so closely around each other that Donghae doesn't know for a moment if it's Hyukjae's thigh he's feeling or his own. Hyukjae mumbles that it tickles.

"Hyukjae," Donghae whispers, feeling around for Hyukjae's face.

"Mmph. That was my eye." 

"Hyukjae-yah, thank you for staying with me." 

"I'll stay with you as long as you want me to."

"About…about the last time, when I yelled at you…I'm sorry. I said really horrible things that weren't true." 

"Maybe what you said was true, some of it," Hyukjae says soberly. His arm curls around Donghae's waist. "I don't want to change." 

"You haven't. You're still Hyukjae." 

There are other things to say, explanations to give, but they don't say anything else. Hyukjae falls asleep faster than he does. The room is quiet and the darkness is somewhat forbidding, lonely. Donghae closes his eyes. All he wants is to sink so completely into Hyukjae that he forgets all this, the pain and the grief and Heechul in hospital and the schedules to be worked on tomorrow. He doesn't want to think about or be a part of any of it. The burden is too heavy, he thinks, he can't bear how heavy it is; but then Hyukjae's breathing evenly beside him and it quiets his mind, the steady, regular ins and outs of breathing, the pump of Hyukjae's heart beneath his ear. 

He doesn't know when he falls asleep, but for the first time in a week he doesn't wake up in the middle of it. 

… …

It is easier, in a sense, to recover faster when he's in Seoul. He has a fixed life that he slips back into; the manager hyungs fill every hour with something to do and somewhere to go; he isn't assaulted by random, unwarranted memories of his father in nooks and crannies, unexpected places. It's easier to pretend that his dad is still back in Mokpo when he doesn't face constant reminders of his death, and easier still when he's constantly surrounded by people all doing their best to get him back on track. 

But it's hard to find heart in his work again. Hard to joke around and pretend to be happy and continue the fanservice with Hyukjae (because that's all it is to Hyukjae, just fanservice, he knows that now) when all he really wants to do is to close his eyes and dance until every muscle in his body screams at him to stop, until he has pushed out his heart and reminded himself of what passion feels like. 

"You're overworking yourself," Shindong says, concernedly, when Donghae comes back to the dorm one evening too tired even to take off his shoes. 

"That's just what I'm trying not to do, hyung," Donghae says. "I don't want to _work_." 

Shindong frowns at him, but doesn't say anything more. 

One late afternoon Hyukjae descends on him in the practice room and drags him off to have jajangmyeon by the Han River. They sit opposite each other at a wooden table, scooping dark gooey noodles into their mouths and watching the water passing by. Hyukjae is beginning to fill out, still skinny but less scrawny, and Donghae wonders how many more things are going to change. 

"I don't know why it feels like everything has died," he says. 

Hyukjae silently transfers some of his kimchi onto Donghae's side dish. 

"Once I thought that I would be so happy just being a singer…but now I feel like it's all…it's just a pretence. That's all I'm doing. I'm pretending here and there and I'm not really doing anything that isn't a pretence." He looks down at his noodles. "Appa isn't here anymore to watch me, too." 

"I'll watch you," Hyukjae says. "I'll watch everything you do from now on." 

Donghae looks at him. "What?" 

"All your shows," Hyukjae says, flailing his arms a bit in an attempt to explain more clearly. "I'll watch everything you do!"

Donghae starts to laugh. His vision blurs and swims before him but he laughs anyway, until Hyukjae kicks him under the table. "Stop laughing, jerk." 

"You," says Donghae. "You…you're such an _idiot_. How can you watch _everything_ I do? You don't have time." 

"It's not like your dad had a lot of time too, right?" Hyukjae says. "He still managed to do it anyway. I'll do it. You just wait." 

That night, Ryeowook and Sungmin present a home-cooked dinner to them. Kyuhyun says that he contributed by chopping all the garlic and vegetables, so don't be on my case about being a lazy magnae. Jongwoon whips out a brand new Liverpool scarf that he'd bought for Donghae "because your old one is fraying at the edges". 

Some things remain real, Donghae thinks. Not everything is a pretence, after all. Not everything is fanservice. 

He looks at Hyukjae sprawled on the floor in deep conversation with Bada and in that moment he realises that he loves Hyukjae so much it hurts.


	3. part two; a denial

**part two; a denial**

And then, as the story usually goes, Hyukjae finds someone else to love.

When Donghae first hears about it from Sungmin, he can pretty much edit and mix background music into it, the melancholic kind of soundtrack ballads that have put South Korea on the music map. _Sarangingayo kude nahwa gatdamyon shijahkingayo_ , the hero loses the beloved heroine once more to the gallant third party, everybody cries, rain falls, Hyukjae's going out with some girl called Miyoung whom Donghae can't even remember meeting.

"You _have_ met her before," Sungmin insists as they sit together in the MBC dressing room, eating fried chicken for lunch. "Remember Sooyoungie's birthday party? We met Miyoung-sshi there." 

Donghae doesn't remember. There had been lots of girls at that birthday party, and when there are lots of girls, they tend to mesh into each other. 

"But," he says, and he feels Sungmin staring at him wondering why he isn't more enthusiastic about this. "But the managers won't let Hyukjae date." 

"They're okay with it," Sungmin says. "Or rather they're not _okay_ with it, exactly, but Hyukjae told them about it this morning and they said that it was risky, but it was okay as long as he isn't found out doing it. If he goes out with her he has to disguise himself, like Heechullie hyung does." 

Donghae stares at his half-eaten chicken wing, skin hanging off white meat. He drops it into the grease-filled box. "But Hyukjae doesn't even like disguises."

"He's in love!" Sungmin says. "He likes everything!"

"You can't be in love in just two months."

"Oh, you." Sungmin makes a move to slap his head, catches sight of his oily fingers and thinks better of it. "Stop being such a wet blanket. What's wrong with you? Don't let Hyukjae see you like that."

When they return to the dorm that night, they bump into Hyukjae and Jungsu on their way out to KTR. Hyukjae rushes over and throws his arms around Donghae's neck, his beanie scratching Donghae's cheek, his backpack dangling off one arm and bumping against Donghae's back. "Sungminnie hyung told me he told you! Donghae-yah, I'm sorry I didn't tell you first, but you were out so early this morning, you know, and it wasn't something I could tell you over the phone! You're not mad, right?" He withdraws and scrutinizes Donghae's face, leaning abnormally close. He smells of deodorant and mint. "You're not allowed to be mad. I'm so happy, Donghae! You have to be happy for me too."

" _I_ would be mad if you suddenly grabbed me like that," Jungsu remarks from the doorway. "Come on, Hyukjae, we're going to be late."

Donghae puts his hands on Hyukjae's hips, so loosely that he has to curl his fingers into the material of Hyukjae's shirt to keep them hanging on. "Congratulations," he says. 

Hyukjae flashes him a quick relieved smile before struggling into his shoes and hurrying out after Jungsu. He slams the door shut on a whirl of March wind that sends loose papers gliding across the apartment and Donghae thinks, this is when they start playing the really sad violin music.

He hears a lot about Miyoung over the next week or so. He still can't remember meeting her at Sooyoung's birthday party and he only knows how she looks like based on a picture in Hyukjae's handphone, a girl with boyishly short hair and red-framed spectacles and a dimple in her cheek, but he knows bits and pieces of trivia about her now. That she loves football and is a born and bred Red Devil like Hyukjae, that she's the captain of her school's female football team, that she can speak Mandarin and cook Chinese cuisine because her mother is half-Chinese. She likes eggs sunny side up, she thinks having Hyukjae in disguise whenever they go out is funny, she's good at algebra and trigonometry and she really, really likes science. She's planning on studying biotechnology in university, and she hopes one day to work in a lab and carry out her own experiments. Jungsu says she's great, Kyuhyun approves of her because Hyukjae declares that she's good at computer games, and even Kibum, who self-professes to have a 'high standard' for girls, thinks she sounds pretty cool. 

Hyukjae sings love songs in the toilet every morning until Youngwoon yells at him to shut up. 

"It's crazy," he confides in Sungmin and Donghae as they're travelling in the van from meeting room to recording studio. "When I'm with her, I feel like…like I light up, or something. Is that sappy or what? But you know, I've written some rap lyrics thinking of her." 

"You are so lovesick," Sungmin declares, and Donghae would like to say something too, but his voice sticks in his throat. 

"I'm going for a movie with her tonight after KTR," Hyukjae says. "She says that it's more fun watching a late night movie than during the day." 

"Ooh, don't do naughty things in the theatre," Sungmin winks. "But if you do, remember to be quiet about it. It's rude to disturb other viewers. And try not to leave behind too much of a mess." 

Hyukjae blushes up to his ears. "Hyung, you think of such sick things! Why can't you be like Donghae? _He_ never teases me." 

"Donghae is too nice to you. I have to be extra mean to make up for him." 

"Donghae-yah," Hyukjae says, reaching over to poke Donghae's arm. "Get a girlfriend soon, so that we can double date. We'll leave Sungmin hyung out of it because he doesn't deserve to have fun with us."

Donghae looks at Hyukjae and can't bring himself to dampen his mood. He nods, and Sungmin starts complaining about why he should be left out of the fun, it's not fair, you tease me too when there's a girl I like, and Hyukjae's arguing back that he never teases about dirty things and Sungmin says yeah right you're dirtier than me you're dirtier than anyone else in this whole wide world and you're so dirty that even the best antibacterial detergent won't make you clean, and then Donghae tunes out of the conversation. 

That spring, all anyone sees when they look at Hyukjae is gums and teeth and crinkled eyes and Donghae throws himself into work, dances past all decent hours every night, allows himself to exhaust his body to such an extent that he's too physically tired to think much. If he stops thinking about it, he'll stop feeling it. If he stops feeling it, it'll stop existing. He has to stop thinking, he tells himself. He has to stop feeling. 

… …

Miyoung visits their dorm one day under heavy secrecy. Hyukjae's tired of disguises and sneaking around after dark and they aren't serious enough in their relationship yet for him to visit her home, so Jungsu takes pity on him and convinces everyone else (because Jungsu has very polished persuasive skills) that it's a necessity for Miyoung to visit their dorm. It is possible, he says, using the art of concealment that they've perfected over two years of being Korean idols and come on, let's not let down our very own Hyukjae, our very best Hyukkie, our jewel and dancing machine and part-time dorm cleaner and okay hyung, we're persuaded, shut up already. 

Jongwoon grumbles about having to vacuum the big bedroom and pick up the pieces of four boys' lives lying strewn on all available surfaces, but they're all kind of excited at the thought of sneaking a girl up into the dorm. Donghae's still thinking of plausible excuses that will get him inconspicuously out of the whole thing when Jungsu reports that Miyoung's in the lift lobby and one of the managers looks out of the window at the ever-present group of fans below, remarks that they better all get out of this alive and unsuspected or it will be his neck on the chopping block, and that's not a place he's ever had any desire for his neck to be. 

Okay, hyung, we'll take good care of your neck. 

Everyone crowds around to meet her when she arrives, slipping off her shoes in the entryway as Hyukjae holds her elbow and re-introduces her to them, this is our leader Teukie hyung, this is Donghee hyung, this is our magnae Kyuhyunnie, don't ever eat anything he cooks, and this is Donghae, he's a big baby so you don't have to call him oppa. 

"He's just bitter that my friends think you're wonderful," Miyoung says, smiling at Donghae. She looks a little like a boy, but her hand is small and smooth in his, her nails painted green, and Donghae finds himself wondering if Hyukjae ever compares Miyoung's hand to his, callused fingers inky from drawing out various choreographies on recycled foolscap paper. 

"You have to warn me of all his bad habits," Miyoung says to him when they're settled in the living room, television tuned in to M-net, Sungmin cutting fruits in the kitchen for all of them. Hyukjae's bad habits. He has lots of them. He kicks when he sleeps, he steals the blanket, he grinds his teeth occasionally. He forgets to cap the shower bottle after he's done. He doesn't like anyone touching his food. He doesn't know how to fold clothes according to creases. He shies away from confrontations. He charges his laptop and then forgets all about it and leaves it charging for two days in a row. 

But telling Miyoung all this will mean that somehow they're banded against Hyukjae, the girlfriend and the best friend against the boyfriend, and there's no reason why he should want to be banded with Miyoung against Hyukjae when he doesn't even remember the first time they met. He smiles politely, looks away pointedly from Miyoung and Hyukjae's expectant expressions. There's a little flat silence.

"He's really picky with his food, isn't he?" Miyoung tries again. "Whenever we go out to eat, he insists on separating his vegetables from the meat. I don't get that at all." 

"I like categorising things," Hyukjae says. 

"Mm," Donghae makes the sound reluctantly at the back of his throat. "Yeah. Hyukjae's a picky eater." 

"Isn't he?" Miyoung says, laughing. "Sometimes I really want to be like, dude you're a guy, you're not supposed to be so picky with your food!"

"It's so unfair," Hyukjae says. "Just because I'm a guy, I'm not allowed to be picky?"

"Yes," Miyoung says. "Just because I'm a girl, I can't be a professional football player. It's the same thing."

"You have no sense of proportion," Hyukjae says, sounding aghast. "Don't you think comparing picky eating to women's rights is over the top? Donghae?" 

"Mm."

A few more seconds of flat silence.

"He's usually more talkative," Jungsu says apologetically to Miyoung. "Not that his silence isn't a pleasant change. But _I_ agree with you, for one. It's a shame you can't be a professional footballer. You would be fantastic on my sports channel." 

"A supporter!" says Miyoung.

"A flirt," Hyukjae corrects. "Teukie hyung, this is my girlfriend. Remember your boundaries." 

"He's being perfectly respectful," Miyoung says.

"Isn't it tiring having such an over-protective boyfriend?" Jungsu says sympathetically. 

They're still at it when the M-net School of Rock comes on and everyone perks up at the screen because SJ-T are the guests. Donghae leans against the couch near Hyukjae's legs and stares at the wall. He isn't consciously aware of thinking, but he remembers something about late nights and life bars depleting and the world seeming to narrow down to two boys. One more round, Lee Donghae, I'll beat you in one more round; one more round, Lee Hyukjae, I'll demolish you again in one more round.

"So, Hyukjae-sshi, you and Donghae were set to be a same sex couple when Super Junior debuted. Donghae isn't in SJ-T, how do you feel about that?" 

Donghae comes back to the present to see Hyukjae smiling awkwardly on TV. Somewhere to his left Jongwoon and Shindong are cracking up. 

"First of all," says TV Hyukjae earnestly, "Donghae and I don't see each other as friends. We're just colleagues."

Donghae tries not to wince, because everyone else in the room is finding it hilarious.

"You're going to make Donghae hyung cry," Kyuhyun says.

"You make it sound so awful," Miyoung says, slapping her hand lightly on Hyukjae's thigh.

"It's true enough," Hyukjae says almost defensively. "We're just colleagues! We wouldn't be living together if we weren't in Super Junior. For that matter, we probably wouldn't even _meet up_."

Donghae covers his mouth with his hand. "We were friends before we became Super Junior," he reminds Hyukjae, because it really shouldn't be that easy to dismiss four years of running down the sides of football fields and walking from the bus stop to Hyukjae's home together in the dead silent of a residential neighbourhood night. He still remembers the number of street lights from the main road to the side road where Hyukjae's home is; eight of them, the last one adjacent to a road sign, sometimes flickering, throwing weird on-off shadows on Hyukjae's crinkly smiling face. 

"But all our meetings were for practice," Hyukjae in the now argues. "We always just met at the SM building." 

"Stop it!" Miyoung protests. "You're hurting Donghae oppa's feelings." 

That may be true, but Donghae wishes she would shut up. She knows nothing about his and Hyukjae's relationship. It's between him and Hyukjae alone, and random girls should keep themselves and their green fingernails out of it. 

"I hate it, that's all," Hyukjae says. "When they try and make it seem like Donghae and I are some sort of romantic couple."

" _We_ know that's not true," Miyoung says comfortingly, doing a playful eye roll at Donghae as though she expects him to eye roll back. "So you shouldn't get worked up over it." 

"I mean," Hyukjae says, "it's okay if the fans like it, but a few nights ago my dad called to ask if there was anything in the rumours that Donghae and I are dating. He actually believed them! He was almost about to disown me." 

Miyoung draws her arm over his shoulders and hugs him to her. "He doesn't believe them anymore, so don't worry about it! Nobody really thinks you're gay, oppa."

Donghae bends over until he's flat on the floor, face buried in his arms. He want to fall through cement and concrete until he's gone. Hyukjae pokes him in the side with his foot, says "What's up with you?" and he sounds concerned, but Donghae doesn't care. Everyone laughs at him but Hyukjae's foot remains pressured into his side. He knows it's Hyukjae's way of showing that he's worried. At any other time he would lift himself up, curl around that foot like a kitten, close his eyes and pretend to purr as Shindong takes a picture for posterity. While they all laugh, as they always do, because laughing keeps emotions at bay. 

But today he rubs his eyes on his sleeve, tries to pretend to everyone and to himself that he's only tearing up because he's tired. It's possible. He has cried from over-exhaustion before. The great sum of tears isn't always caused by sadness, after all. 

… …

He wakes up to a double dip in his pillow, warm calves snuggled against his pyjama legs. He recognises the morning breath. 

His eyes are half-open when he says, "Get off me, Hyukjae."

"Mmm," Hyukjae says, nuzzling his nose happily into Donghae's neck. The tip of his nose is cold and Donghae thinks of not pushing him away. Thinks of putting his arms around Hyukjae and running his finger over the curve of Hyukjae's shoulder bone and fisting the material of his Superman T-shirt and then his back is against the wall and Hyukjae is blinking in sleepy bewilderment at him. 

"Go away." 

"Why?" 

Donghae curls his hands into the creases in the blanket. "Miyoung-sshi wouldn't like it." 

Hyukjae looks at him as if he's mad. "Why would she care?"

"Because," Donghae begins, and stops, because there's really no reason why Miyoung _would_ care. 

Hyukjae waits a few moments, but when Donghae can't decide the follow-up to his 'because' he says, "You don't like her, right? You were acting so weird when she came over…she was pretty upset thinking that she'd done something to make you mad at her."

"But I'm not mad at her."

"I thought you would like her," says Hyukjae sadly. "You two have so much in common." 

"She's _your_ girlfriend. Why should you care whether I like her or not?" 

Hyukjae bites his lip and Donghae pushes himself up, wraps the blanket around his waist. He has a feeling that he's hurting Hyukjae in some vague way and he doesn't like the thought of that. He wishes he could stop. He wants to say something nice about Miyoung, like she paints her nails prettily and her dimples are cute and she seems like a really nice person and all the other good things that you say about good people, but when he starts he sounds fake and it doesn't make Hyukjae look any happier.

"She likes football. That's good. I like people who like football. They're, you know, they're cool. Especially if they're girls, like Miyoung-sshi."

"Stop it." 

"You wanted me to like her!"

Hyukjae sits up too, and they stare at each other across crumpled bedsheets. "Why are you being like this?" 

"Like what?"

"This," Hyukjae says, tapping his fingers inarticulately on the bed. "It's not…like how you would be."

"You can't expect me to be her best friend just because she's your girlfriend," Donghae says. "Things don't happen like that."

Hyukjae looks away from him to Sungmin's bed, piled over with clothes and books for guitar learners. They haven't been awkward for a long time; they've forgotten how to deal with it. When was the last time? Donghae thinks he remembers clothes on the floor, the window sill, Hyukjae red and thin in his overcoat. He remembers wanting to reach out. He remembers wanting to forget this feeling.

"I'm sorry," he says. 

"No," says Hyukjae, getting off the bed. "Don't be. It's not your fault." 

"She's great," Donghae says, pushing the words out, syllable by syllable. "She really is."

"I know," Hyukjae says. He turns the doorknob and walks out. 

… …

Donghae smiles the next time he sees Miyoung pretending to be one of their stylist noonas backstage, smiles so hard that Heechul notices. Heechul can generally be relied upon to notice, quite accurately, things that people don't want him to, and so when he pulls Donghae into his room later that day and tells him that he knows, it doesn't occur to Donghae to deny it. 

"God, how long has this been going on, a year? Two years?" Heechul puts a finger on his bottom lip. "I should have noticed it earlier." 

"You weren't supposed to, hyung. Nobody is supposed to know."

"Hyukjae doesn't, of course."

" _Especially_ not Hyukjae," Donghae says, though frequently in his dreams Hyukjae does know and no matter how hard he tries, he can never get used to the look of revulsion on Hyukjae's face when he finds out. He looks at Heechul and wants, suddenly and intensely, for Heechul to tell him to go for it, forsake conventions and push for what he wants in the way Heechul himself has done a dozen times before. If anyone would support him, Heechul would; Heechul the infamous idol who says and does against the expected, the boy who looks like a girl, the one employee who refuses to be thumbed down by the SM management. Heechul who doesn't care about God or the Ten Commandments or the rules written by powerful senior pastors. 

If there could be one person behind him for this, he thinks, just one person, it wouldn't feel so bad. 

But Heechul only nods. "You're right. It would be a disaster if Hyukjae ever found out."

Stay away from me, Hyukjae in the dream says. Don't come near me again. 

"I don't understand it, hyung." 

"What?" 

"Why I have to feel this way about him." Donghae rubs his eyes so hard that his vision whitens when he takes his hands away. "If I could understand it, then maybe I could stop it. I could do something about it. But I can't, and I can't do anything about it, and I've _tried_. Hyung, you have no idea how hard I've tried." 

You're a guy, Hyukjae says. We're both guys. 

Can a guy not love another guy? Donghae asks. Or does he become dirty from it? 

"There are times when I've thought that maybe…" he pauses for a moment, because this is so stupid, saying it out is so stupid, thinking it is so stupid, " _maybe_ he could like me a bit, but ultimately I know I'm just imagining things. Hyukjae isn't like that. He has never _thought_ of being like that. If he ever finds out how I feel about him he'll never want to be near me again and I don't know – I can't even imagine how I'll bear it if that happens."

"So…"

"So I'll get over it. I'll find a girl, I'll like her the way Hyukjae likes Miyoung-sshi. The way he thinks she's perfect."

"The way he sings stupid love songs in the toilet," Heechul says, but Donghae doesn't smile. 

Heechul reaches out to hold Donghae's hand. He won't say go ahead and follow your feelings, because both of them know that in this society they're living in, in this industry they've chosen to work in, desires like that have to be suppressed. There isn't an alternative to consider. 

So Donghae doesn't say it, Hyukjae doesn't find out, and they're at the beach together, warm sand beneath their legs, Hyukjae perving at the girls in bikini, turning round to smile at Donghae, sun in his eyes, squint. The dream is clear and vivid, distinct lines, and Donghae wonders if this could be enough. 

"Hyung, why do I have to like him so much?" 

"I don't know," Heechul says. "But one day you'll get over it. Donghae-yah. You won't like him forever." 

"I won't like him forever," Donghae repeats. At that moment, he wants so badly to believe it that he almost does. Almost, but not really, because he knows a lie when he sees one, especially when he's the one telling it. When had it become so easy to lie, so hard to believe? He wants, he thinks, he still wants to be with Hyukjae. Sitting together by the beach isn't enough. He still wants. After all those objections, all the avoidance, all the effort to pull himself out of it, he still wants. It's so hard to dull a want like this.

… …

In early April, Jungsu falls in love for the third time in two years and cancels his movie outing with Youngwoon in favour of attending some high school gathering of his girlfriend's. Youngwoon brings back five bottles of Hite beer to drink the hours away and Donghae keeps him company because nobody else is at home. 

"Tell you something," Youngwoon says, uncapping his third bottle, "the worst thing that can happen to you when you're single is your best friend getting into a relationship. Sounds terrible but you know, it's true. I bet _you_ know it. Barely seen Hyukkie around since he got together with Miyoungie." 

Donghae nurses his apple juice. "I guess."

Youngwoon burps. "Not that I don't want to get into a relationship myself. Damn Jungsu and all his girls. Donno where he gets them from, that bastard. Say, think having three kids would be enough? Two girls, one boy." 

"Haven't thought that far ahead actually, hyung."

"Yeah, right." Youngwoon laughs at him. "All your talk about wanting kids, I bet you've named them already. But you'd be a great dad. Unlike me. Or Jungsu. He'd nag them to death. Poor kids." He moons over his bottle for a moment. "Where's Hyukjae this evening, anyway?" 

"Out with Miyoung-sshi. I didn't bother asking where." 

"You know, Hae," Youngwoon says, "you ain't as subtle as you think you are. Anyone can sniff your jealousy of Miyoungie from ten miles away." 

Donghae stiffens and Youngwoon laughs at him, knocks his bottle against Donghae's mug. That's what happens when your best friend gets hooked up and leaves you out in the cold with beer and no movie, dude. Feels worse when you're older. Ah well. Here, pass me another bottle of beer, runnin' low here. Stop looking like misery. No point dwelling on it, yeah? Cheers, you little sad-faced idiot. 

… …

Siwon is the only one who likes coffee in the morning; everyone else likes brown rice tea. Ryeowook makes the tea for whoever's in the house; he has tried on numerous occasions to teach Kyuhyun the mechanics of making tea, that the white mug with vertical red stripes belongs to Teukie hyung and the strangely shaped blue cup is Donghee hyung's and the slightly chipped brown mug is whoever's, but Kyuhyun is disinterested and deliberately slow and Ryeowook figured a while ago that it's easier to just make the tea on his own. 

Donghae wakes up to the sound of metal spoons hitting the bottom of mugs and Siwon laughing in the kitchen with Ryeowook. They sound happy and Donghae turns over in bed, rubs his cheek against the pillow and tries to block out the ringing of the house phone; it's a mortal crime for people to be calling so early in the morning. Someone picks up the phone and he's about to go back to sleep, he's so drowsy from last night's meeting that had dragged on from seven in the evening to way past midnight, and then Ryeowook's shouting something in the living room and Siwon breaks a cup and he's not going back to sleep anymore.

Sungmin slams the bedroom door open, runs to the closet to grab the first thing that comes to hand. "Teukie hyung, Hyukjae, Kyuhyunnie and Donghee got into an accident," he says, words so fast and slurred that Donghae can barely understand him. "They're all in hospital now and the paramedics told Seunghwan hyung that Kyuhyunnie is so bad he might not survive. He…god, Donghae, get out of bed. We're out of here in five minutes." 

They're out of the dorm in three, Sungmin tying his shoelaces in the elevator, Donghae with his shirt on backwards. Nobody notices. They make it to the hospital, the smell of covered up sickness and the lingering of paused lives, and Donghae thinks there should be something for them to do, at least; something for them to see; but there's nothing and they're stuck in the waiting area outside the operating theatre while they wait for their manager, Seunghwan, to show up with news. 

It's Shindong whom they're taken to see first in a double bed ward. He's sitting up in bed with bandages on his arms and he says it's okay, he's alright, just minor injuries, the wrapping looks scarier than it really is, but Ryeowook and Siwon tear up at the sight of him. 

"We didn't even know what happened," Shindong says. "One minute we were on the road and the next minute we went crashing over. Hyukkie's not too badly off, but he found Kyuhyunnie lying on the side of the road and he said he thinks Kyuhyun might…might…"

The word dies on his tongue and he looks at all of them; he doesn't know how to say it. 

"Stop looking like that," Heechul says sharply. "Kyuhyun isn't dead yet, and isn't likely to be, so stop behaving as though he is."

"If anything happens to him," Sungmin says, so white that even his lips are ashen, "how can we go on?" 

Hyukjae is wheeled in by a nurse before anyone else answers. He barely replies when they talk to him and he doesn't respond at all when they touch, so finally the nurse says, two visitors in this room, two only, and no protests please. 

Donghae holds Hyukjae's hand so they won't make him leave. Sungmin's talking to Shindong, a low murmur, not really distinct, and Donghae sits on the hospital bed beside Hyukjae, leans his head against Hyukjae's shoulder and breathes in the warmth of his neck. 

"Donghae-yah," Hyukjae says, so soft that neither Sungmin nor Shindong hears. 

"Mmm." 

"Miyoung." 

Donghae withdraws a little, but Hyukjae doesn't appear to notice. "She can't come to the hospital in case the fans see her…so can you give her a call…tell her that I'm okay and I'll call her as soon as I can?"

"Okay," says Donghae. He lifts his head from Hyukjae's shoulder and sits apart, studying the nondescript cream walls, the grey tabletop at the foot of the hospital bed. "Are you really okay, Hyuk?" 

"My waist was hurting," Hyukjae says, still quietly. "When Donghee hyung and I got out of the van…my waist was hurting so much, I thought I might not be able to dance again." 

"But…"

"I don't know why, but I was thinking of you." His voice is so low that Donghae has to move closer again, put his ear almost to Hyukjae's mouth. "Throughout, from the moment it happened to when the ambulances came and we were all taken here, I was thinking of you. Isn't that weird?" 

"What about me?" 

"Just…everything." Hyukjae makes a vague gesture. "How we used to rinse our hair under the tap and how my noona yelled at us from downstairs and how we used to dance together on Saturday nights and…just…everything. How it would be like not to see you again. It's like I wasn't even really _trying_. When I got to Kyuhyunnie he was saying, this is it hyung I'm seeing everything, this is what happens before you die. I was like him. My mind was off thinking that stuff all on its own." 

He slips his hand into Donghae's and the both of them stare at their interlinked fingers. Donghae's too afraid to speak. He can feel Hyukjae looking at him, but he doesn't dare to turn back, to look into Hyukjae's eyes in case his face gives away something. 

"I guess that means we're really good friends, huh?" Hyukjae says. 

Donghae has to swallow hard before he can reply. "Of course, you ass. In fact, you might even, even…" _be in love with me_ , he means to say, jokingly, but he can't say it, he's afraid his voice might waver. So he says instead, "You might even think of me as your best friend instead of Junsu." 

Hyukjae smiles, but the smile vanishes almost before it takes shape on his face. There's so little to smile about now, when Kyuhyun's life is slipping away from him somewhere in the hospital and Jungsu's part glass. He closes his eyes and leans back against the pillow; he looks old and sad and drained and Donghae holds on until Hyukjae's family comes.

… …

The day that Shindong and Hyukjae are discharged from the hospital, Hyukjae follows Donghae and Siwon to a prayer night at their church. They move from praise to worship and the crescendo of music gets louder, the notes get higher, they're singing about redemption and the cross and Donghae opens his eyes in the middle of a prayer to see Hyukjae sitting down in his seat, hands over his face. Hyukjae – or, for that matter, people in general – being moved to tears in church isn't out of the common, but something in the way Hyukjae's crying, tears leaking out through the spaces between his fingers, shoulders hunched, makes Donghae catch his breath, look away guiltily like it's something he wasn't meant to have seen. 

Hyukjae cries all the way till the end of the worship session and Donghae wants to ask why, but it isn't polite to hold a whispered conversation while the pastor is talking. So he leaves it until they're standing outside the sanctuary, talking to church members who're all happy and thankful to see Hyukjae back in one piece "Praise God, we prayed for you the whole of last week!" and it's only in one rare undisturbed moment that Donghae is able to sidle close and say, "Why were you crying during worship?" 

But before Hyukjae can reply, they're interrupted by yet another thankful church-goer who'd prayed the entire week for Hyukjae and so he doesn't get his answer.

… …

A long time ago, in what seems like a distant blurry landscape, Hyukjae would have laughed and flung playful comments back at Jongwoon and Youngwoon's teasing while watching their Tuesday night horror movie, but the landscape now is grey and grainy and vacant and Hyukjae doesn't say anything.

Hasn't, in fact, said much since the accident, not even when they received news that Kyuhyun had pulled through his operation and was on recovery mode. Sungmin says that Donghae is imagining things since nobody seems to be feeling any change except him, but it's there and it's obvious and they're all making themselves blind by refusing to see it. So he says, and Sungmin just frowns at him and says stop being paranoid, don't make the situation any harder for him and Donghee than it already is.

But there comes a time when the sheer force of reality lifts the blindness and everyone sees Hyukjae spacing out at the living room window for minutes at a time, leaving Sungmin to laugh at their favourite romantic comedy by himself; Hyukjae stirring his late morning tea so absently that it turns cold in his cup; reading manga alone in the big bedroom when he has any sort of an hour to spare; existing so half-heartedly and blearily that nobody dares to climb into bed with him anymore because Hyukjae just turns over on his side and lies there, limp and unresponsive, until they go away. 

Sungmin finally concedes, very reluctantly, that there might be something amiss when Hyukjae cancels a date with Miyoung one night for apparently no better reason than going over to Heechul and Kibum's dorm to, according to Hankyung's report over the phone, read One Piece manga while Kibum smashes virtual things beside him in the World of Warcraft.

"He hasn't said much since he came," Hankyung says, keeping his voice low like a conspiratorial spy. "Maybe he just really wants to finish this volume?" 

"Maybe," Sungmin says. "One Piece is a very absorbing manga."

"Hyukjae has finished every volume he currently has," Donghae objects when Sungmin hangs up. 

"Let's not blow this up," Sungmin says. "Maybe he just didn't feel like meeting her tonight. People get tired of each other, you know, when they see each other day in and day out. It happens." 

Donghae forebears to mention that it has been over two weeks since Hyukjae last saw Miyoung, and avoiding your girlfriend is not exactly a normal attitude of a guy who was recently in an overturned van.

Hyukjae starts going to the other dorm whenever he has off time ("time enough to have finished re-reading every volume of manga he owns by now," Donghae says when Hankyung reports that Hyukjae's still reading manga while Kibum continues smashing virtual things) and Ryeowook comments one day that the dorm seems quieter lately, like nobody's really alive. 

"Yah, it's because that dude's over at my place all the time now," Heechul says, starting the fruit juice blender in the kitchen. 

"Hyukjae hyung?" Ryeowook says. 

"Him," Heechul shouts over the whirring of the blender. "He's always sitting in my living room reading his everlasting manga." 

"Are we too noisy for him?" Jongwoon wonders. 

"I can't even begin to point out how ironic that sentence is," Heechul says.

"He hasn't been acting normally since he got back from the hospital," Ryeowook says doubtfully. 

"Hyukkie is _fine_ ," Sungmin insists, reverting to his blind side. "People take time to get over things. Things like a _near-death experience_. We're not doing him any good wandering around suspecting that he's about to jump off the building or something just because he's not laughing as much as before."

Donghae doesn't want to listen anymore. He walks out of the dorm. The days are getting hotter now; sunshine beats directly onto the top of his head as he walks the meters between his dorm and Heechul's, thinks of Hyukjae blond and silly a year ago laughing with his hand covering his exposed gums. Something constricts in his heart, but he doesn't know what, it makes his heart feel sort of stifled and sad, and he still doesn't know when he finds himself in the other dorm with nobody in sight but Kibum reading alone in the sitting room. 

"If you're here for Hyukjae hyung," Kibum says, barely lifting his eyes from the pages, "he's sleeping in my room." 

"Sleeping?"

"Yeah. Guess he doesn't have anything else better to do than appropriate my bed like he doesn't have one of his own." 

Donghae slides open the door of Kibum's bedroom and peers inside. The curtains are drawn and the room is greenish glowy, dim, unmoving. Middle of the night quiet in the middle of the day. Hyukjae's a shapeless lump under the blanket. Donghae eases himself in, clicks the door shut behind him and lifts the edge of the blanket, rolling in and fitting himself around Hyukjae. This is what they used to do, lie beside each other in dim rooms sometimes sleeping, like Hyukjae is now, other times awake and thinking formless thoughts, like Donghae is now. He doesn't allow himself to remember that he'd once kicked Hyukjae out of his bed because of Miyoung. He doesn't want to remember that there is such a thing as a Miyoung. 

He thinks, instead, that maybe time might have slowed down, that in this still room even the grand mechanical ticking of time might have miscalculated a hundred seconds for one minute and a hundred minutes for one hour just so that Donghae can lie beside Hyukjae and wish themselves back to a time when there hadn't been girls with short hair and overturned vans and unnatural silences and all the things that make life perplexing.

Hyukjae stirs. 

"Hyukjae?" Donghae murmurs when Hyukjae's eyelids open a sliver. 

"Mmm?" 

Hyukjae relaxes beside him and Donghae lets out a sigh that he hadn't known he had been holding in. He wraps a loose arm around Hyukjae's waist and Hyukjae doesn't pull away; pushes in, in fact, to lean his cheek against Donghae's shoulder. 

"I wish we could stay like this forever," Donghae says unthinkingly, and then immediately contemplates biting his tongue out.

Hyukjae draws back to look at him. His eyes are shadowed in the dimness and Donghae barely dares to look into them. There's a long pregnant silence, and Donghae thinks maybe he should get out of bed and leave, maybe he should make it into a joke, say something anything, hey _I_ would stay like this but your feet stink, you know, and it would be so gross; yes, something like that; and then Hyukjae says, "Forever, without getting up to eat or drink or go to the toilet?"

Donghae breathes in deep to slow his heartbeat. "I suppose we would have to go to the toilet. It would be a mess if we didn't. But only for that." 

"We would die here," Hyukjae says, a hint of laughter.

"We would have slept ourselves to death." 

"Kibummie would never forgive us for choosing _his bed_ to die in."

Donghae can feel the weight of Hyukjae's breath on his face. They're still touching, but barely. Lightly. There, but not really. "It would be great, though, wouldn't it? Not dying in Kibummie's bed, I mean. But dying like this."

Hyukjae pulls his hand up to pillow his cheek. "Yes."

He's so close, the word falls onto Donghae's lips. If he moves an inch, they will be mouth on mouth. Hyukjae isn't moving that inch, but he isn't moving away either. Donghae closes his eyes, forces his mind to think rationally, but logic is lost somewhere in the back of his brain and he can't call it out. He wants. He wants so badly, he struggles not to move because he's half-hard already and he hates how his body reacts to intimacy with Hyukjae, he hates how he has to grip the bedsheet and force his limbs into immobility. He hates, above all, how terrified he is. 

"Kiss me," Hyukjae says, his voice unnaturally low. 

Donghae's eyes fly open, expecting almost to see some bright lights in the room, maybe, a camera and a boom microphone and a PD directing things and possibly even a few fans recording them with their handphones, but there's nobody except Hyukjae, and Hyukjae's eyes are wide open. 

"What?"

"Kiss me," Hyukjae repeats.

"Hyukjae-yah…"

They're breathing, short and quick, almost like gasps. Donghae thinks his heart might burst out of his body altogether. What's in a kiss, lip on lip, kisses don't mean anything, a kiss is still a kiss, he doesn't know what's happening, he might be about to kiss the best friend whom he's loved for years and wants with a want so yearning and desperate that it sometimes feels like it eats him up from inside. He moves his head forward a fraction of an inch, but abruptly Hyukjae pushes himself up, swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits there, arms tense, shoulders shaking. 

Donghae presses his forehead into the pillow. 

"I'm sorry," Hyukjae says. 

He doesn't realise he's reaching out until his hand bumps Hyukjae's back. "No, Hyukjae…"

Hyukjae jerks away. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry." 

He's out of the room in seconds, and Donghae falls back boneless onto the bed, lies still staring at the ceiling until his eyes are smarting and his vision is blurring and he thinks maybe he's drowning but he can't seem to find the strength to push up and break through the surface. 

… …

They don't talk about it, ever. Because that's what people are supposed to do after they've come an inch away from crossing a dozen forbidden lines. They sweep it under the carpet, they push it to the back of the freezer, they put a padlock on it, and maybe a couple of extra chains for good measure. Just in case. 

Donghae realises that he forgot to install the chains when he's sitting in the back of a dingy little pub in some obscure neighbourhood and there's a mug of amber-coloured liquid before him with Heechul saying, "In case you're wondering, this is positively the _last_ beer you're having." 

"You know hyung," Donghae says, flailing around to hug Heechul and succeeding in smacking his cheek instead, "beer's actually _really nice_."

"Yeah," Heechul says gloomily. "I feel like I just corrupted my own kid." 

"It's _funny_."

"What, corrupting my own kid?"

"That he asked me to kiss him. _He_ asked _me_ to kiss him. Isn't that funny?" Donghae giggles into his beer, gets bubbles all over his mouth that explode in tiny bursts. 

Heechul blinks at him. "Repeat that." 

"He asked me to kiss him," Donghae repeats obediently. 

"Well," Heechul says blankly. "Shit." 

"Like, all these years I've been thinking, you know, what would it be like to kiss him? Thinking how stupid it was to even think about that! Thinking that it would totally freak him out! And then he just looks at me and says, kiss me! Like it's nothing! Like you can just _do_ that! Like he really wants me to!" 

"Goddamn it, Donghae, just goddamn tell me what happened without the commentary." 

"Except that I didn't," Donghae says solemnly. 

Heechul sags against the seat. "Okay, at least you had the sense not to." 

"But I would have," Donghae announces, "if he hadn't walked away." 

"Amendments," Heechul says. "At least he had the sense _to_." 

"Isn't it funny?" Donghae starts giggling again. "The more I think about it, the funnier it is. He asked me to kiss him. We almost did. And then now we're not talking about it, like it didn't _happen_ , but it did and I'm so tired of pretending, hyung, isn't it funny?" 

"Not really," says Heechul, but Donghae laughs anyway, laughs until his forehead smacks the tabletop. 

"Ow." 

"I _was_ thinking of giving you a pep talk about how there are lots of girls out there who would be willing to go out with you in a minute," Heechul says, "but you probably won't remember a thing of what I say tomorrow morning and so it'll just be a waste of time. Finish that beer quickly, we're going home." 

"Beer," Donghae says, looking sideways at his mug. For a moment it doesn't seem like he recognises what he's drinking; he wraps his fingers around the thick glass handle, stares, and then his face suddenly crumples, dramatically and childishly. "I drank _beer_."

"Yes?"

"I promised Hyukjae I'd never drink beer! I'd never get drunk, we'd never drink…oh god, hyung, I broke my promise to Hyukjae, I drank beer." 

Heechul sighs and pulls the mug away, getting out of his seat and dragging Donghae along with him. Donghae can walk, but he's crying so hard that it's hard keeping his steps straight. "I drank, hyung." 

"It's not a monumental sin, you know."

"But I broke our pact." 

Heechul pushes Donghae headfirst into a cab, hopes devoutly that the managers are out tonight playing nursemaid to some of the other members. Maybe, if they're lucky, he'll get Donghae into bed before anyone realises that Donghae's drunk. Heechul sometimes finds Jungsu's righteous anger boring, even if he might balk at it a little. Just a little. Donghae falls into the dorm right at Hyukjae's feet. 

"What?" Hyukjae looks from Donghae on the floor to Heechul biting his lip at the doorway. "What's wrong with him?"

"He had a little too much to drink," Heechul says, trying to sound less guilty. 

"He's _drunk_?"

"I promised I wouldn't, Hyuk," Donghae muffles, burying his head in Hyukjae's ankles. "I'm sorry, I promised I wouldn't." 

Hyukjae bends over to pull him up. Donghae cries into Hyukjae's shoulder. He's not sure what he's crying about anymore. It feels like he has broken more things than boyish pacts. 

"Hyukjae," Heechul says as Hyukjae's turning away, Donghae a heap in his arms.

"Hyung?"

"Don't play with him." 

Hyukjae opens his mouth, but he doesn't say anything. He looks at Heechul once, a look that shames Heechul to the base of his soul, and then walks slowly into the dorm, step after step, pulling Donghae with him. 

… …

Miyoung calls him one night, crying so hard over the phone that Donghae can't make out a single word through her sobs. She might be saying something about Hyukjae (no, she definitely _is_ , there's no other reason why she would call) and she might be blaming him for something, but he's not sure, he can't make it out. What? She's saying, is it true? 

"What is?"

She tries to breathe. He can hear the check in her sobs. "Has he fallen for someone else?" 

"What?!"

"Please…" she's back to incoherency and Donghae wishes he could hang up. 

"Miyoung-sshi, I don't understand you _at all_."

"Please," she says again, "please, oppa. Tell me." 

"Why…"

"He says he might have and I…" she's crying crying she says Hyukjae is in love with someone else, she wants to know if it's true, she wants him back if it isn't, and he knows it's horrible awful mean vicious to hang up on her when she's done nothing wrong, but he puts down the phone anyway. Shivers against the wall. Wonders if this is how it feels to be standing right in middle of a joy so terrible that it feels more like pungent, thickened fear. 

… …

They're at an amusement park with Junsu and Sungmin, and Junsu has just dropped his wallet sometime during the second roller coaster ride. Sungmin's the only one who has any idea of what to do (Hyukjae just freaks out and Donghae thinks they should ask the ride operators to close down the ride while they hunt for the wallet; it has to be _somewhere_ , he argues) and so Junsu follows Sungmin to the park office to make a report. 

Donghae says they should go for ice cream while they wait. It's heartless, to be sure, having ice cream while your good friend stresses out about losing his entire week's allowance, but it's a hot day and he doesn't particularly want to sit around looking doleful. Hyukjae agrees that they should have ice cream, because he doesn't have much of a heart either. 

They find an ice cream cart manned by a teenaged girl who looks really bored. Maybe she's doing this to get extra money for make-up or for _that_ hairstyling job she's always wanted but never managed to afford. Hyukjae says, with a giggle, that all girls look like they have the same hairstyles, whether it's permed or dyed or, you know, whatever other styles that they do in a salon. Donghae refrains from saying that Hyukjae's hairstyle looks bad on him; it's obvious he had it cut at a really cheap salon. The type that costs 6000 won and doesn't even bother washing your hair. 

Hyukjae's ice cream melts all over his fingers, because it's Hyukjae and if anyone's ice cream is going to melt all over their fingers, it would be Hyukjae's ice cream. He wants to buy another, but Donghae says no no, don't waste money, just share mine. His ice cream suddenly becomes bigger and they're sharing it between them, digging ice and cream and all the other ice-creamy ingredients into little plastic spoons and laughing as they keep scooping and scooping from this ice cream that never gets any smaller. 

Donghae says, I'm so happy, and Hyukjae says, I think this is what God meant life to be. Ice cream, and you, and…stuff. 

When he opens his eyes, they're sitting in the back of the company van and Hyukjae is looking at him. Trees are flashing by, buildings and people, and all Donghae sees is Hyukjae. He inches forward and Hyukjae doesn't pull away and then they're kissing, mouths closed, gentle, not entirely everything that Donghae ever imagined a kiss should be but something sweet and loving and heady. Something that doesn't taste like cardboard. Something romantic and sad and quintessentially Hyukjae.

When he draws away, Hyukjae pulls him back and kisses him again. This time it's addicting. This time he feels the push of Hyukjae's tongue on his. This time it feels so right, so logical, that it would make sense if they just stayed like this, kissing like this, forever. 

And maybe they don't stay like this forever. Maybe they stop when they reach their destination. Maybe nobody sees, because the driver and the manager are talking together in the front seat and he and Hyukjae are partially concealed by the headrests of the seats in front. 

But even if there had been a crowd of people in the van, Donghae thinks, maybe he would still have kissed Hyukjae anyway, all the way past the flashing trees and buildings and people who don't matter one iota when Hyukjae's mouth is on his. 

… …

He's not very clear yet about what happened in the van, but he's left with impressions that he replays in the back of his mind for the remainder of the day and long into the night. Lips softer than he'd ever imagined, fast beating pulses, sweaty hands, cold fingers. The tiniest hint of a smile, curving up on the left side of the mouth, stretching the chin. 

Maybe Hyukjae might have said his name during the breather at the end of the third kiss. Donghae can't really remember. Little details here and there are becoming vague; others remain vividly clear. The feel of Hyukjae's thumb running over the back of his hand, the heat of Hyukjae's mouth, the taste of him, sweet and salty and minty, Fisherman's Friend. It makes Donghae want to smile. 

Hyukjae's sitting in the living room at four thirty in the morning of the next day, the first person awake, wrapped in a jacket with the hoodie pulled low over his eyes. The drizzle outside makes everything sound forlorn. Donghae thinks of dancing in the rain. 

He bends over behind Hyukjae, hugs him around his neck. Hyukjae tilts his head back. The living room lamp throws light onto his mouth and Donghae touches it lightly with his finger, traces the shape, watches Hyukjae's lips quiver. 

"I want to go out onto the rooftop," he says.

"It's raining," Hyukjae says. 

"It's just a drizzle." 

It's chilly and windy when they step out, but it's okay. Hyukjae's hand is warm. Donghae looks ahead to the cluttered mess of rooftops, grey and bleak and dirty, mist-frosted in the drizzle, and it's possible that he's never seen anything more beautiful than this greyed out landscape.

"I'm not with Miyoung anymore," Hyukjae says. Half his voice is lost in the wind. 

"I know. She…called me." 

Hyukjae blinks at him. "When?"

"I don't know. The night you broke up with her, I guess. She was crying. She said you were in love with someone else." 

"You thought it might be you." 

Donghae nods.

Hyukjae looks down at their linked hands. "I thought it wouldn't be…fair…to her. When I was feeling so confused about what I wanted. She cried…I cried…but I couldn't…I didn't want to do things behind her back. She's so good…she doesn't deserve it."

"I still don't really understand…when? I mean, you and me? About me?" Donghae looks at him. "Was it when you started acting weird?" 

"I just thought…" Hyukjae pauses, opens his palm to watch rain flicker onto his hand. "I just kept thinking, why were _you_ the one I thought about when I was so sure that that was it for me. I kept thinking that it had to mean something. And then there were times when you would just look at me…and I thought…maybe this _thing_ was happening to you too." 

Donghae swallows. He's still not sure if he's frighteningly happy or frighteningly scared, but he wants to grab onto this moment and chain himself to it so that he never has to let it go. "I've felt this way about you since…I don't even remember when I started. I was always so frightened of you finding out. I thought you wouldn't want to be near me ever again if you knew how I felt…and when you got together with Miyoung, it was…it was so painful, Hyukjae. I didn't know how to deal with it." 

Hyukjae stares at the rooftops, at the sky, and then suddenly he's pulling Donghae close and their noses are bumping and they can't feel each other's hearts through the thickness of their jackets but somehow they're kissing, rough and sloppy and the complete antithesis of all their previous kisses, nothing soft or romantic or fairytale-like, just lips and teeth and tongue and Hyukjae's breath on his face when they pull apart. 

Hyukjae's tears are cold on Donghae's cheeks. "I don't understand what's happening."

Donghae's not sure if he has caught his breath yet. He thinks maybe he'll remain breathless for the rest of his life, always on the verge of breathing but somehow never catching up. "What's happening to you has been happening to me for years." 

"I'm not gay," Hyukjae says. 

"I want…" Donghae squeezes his eyes close, opens them again to look at the drizzle in the wind. The harshness of the bleak, unforgiving rooftops streaked with dirt. "I want to forget that there's such a word." 

"But it exists, and if we do this, people are going to label us with it. They aren't going to forget it just because we want them to." 

"I don't want to care about people." 

"But we have to. We live with them." 

"I don't want to care about them, I only want to care about _you_. For now. Even if it's just for this one hour. I've been thinking about them for too long, I just want to think about you now." 

"Donghae." 

"You're not gay. _We're_ not gay." 

"Then what are we?" Hyukjae looks back at him. He's still crying, his breaths are coming out forced and ragged, and the tears on his face are mingled with the drizzling wind. "What is this, Donghae?" 

… …

We can only keep this going if we don't look at what we know, Hyukjae says. If we keep running blind. 

I don't want to run blind, Donghae says. They're running in a mist so thick that all they see are unidentifiable circles of light glowing from an immeasurable distance. They don't know where they're going, but somehow they can't stop. They keep running forwards, or maybe backwards, or maybe sideways, in this visible blankness. In a frightening way, it feels like they're already blind. Donghae wants to be able to see.

But we can't afford to look at what we're running towards.

I want to see you. 

Hyukjae stretches out his hand and maybe their bodies are colliding even though they're still running half a metre apart. Maybe there's space between them but they're compressing it. 

So maybe, Hyukjae says, all we'll see is each other. 

That's all I want to see, Donghae intends to say, but before the words are fully formed in his throat he's rudely awoken by Shindong jumping on top of him. The echoes of his dream fall away. He has the left over residue of feeling that it had been something important, something soul-defining or life-altering or significant like that, but he really can't remember what it is. All he remembers is that somewhere along the way, he'd been running blind with eyes wide open.


	4. part three; a growth

**part three; a growth**

It's past one-thirty in the morning when the front door finally opens. Jungsu comes in first, balancing his bag, umbrella, and miscellaneous gift bags from the fans at KTR while kicking off his shoes. Their manager, Seunghwan, comes in overloaded with grocery bags; he likes shopping in the supermarket at night, he says, less people around, quieter, never mind that the vegetables might have been lying there the whole day. Hyukjae follows behind, brushing raindrops off his bag. They don't register surprise when they see Donghae sitting in the darkened living room hunched over his PSP, but Jungsu does pause long enough to remark, "Are you getting so much sleep in the day that you can't sleep at night?" before dropping everything on the floor and going into the bedroom he shares with Ryeowook and Kyuhyun. Donghae imagines him stepping over Kyuhyun's legs, reaching over to grab the home clothes that Ryeowook laid out on his bed earlier. 

Hyukjae turns on the kitchen light and presses hot water from the boiler into his mug. They don't say anything yet. Seunghwan is messing around in the kitchen and Donghae is willing him to leave, to feel how much he's not wanted because even though he might be a great manager who doesn't mind grocery shopping for the good of the dorm, Donghae really doesn't want to hear about tomorrow's schedules and how he's sorry it's so packed but there isn't much he can do about it so be sure to be up at six, we have to be out of here by six-thirty, goddamn it everything is so tight I'm two steps away from strangling kittens.

"Glad to know that it's not me you want to strangle, hyung," Hyukjae says, and Seunghwan rushes to assure him that no, no, of course not, it's not his fault, it's the damn company thinking that 60 million won a year is reason enough to squeeze their very lives out of them. 

He leaves a rant later for his bedroom and Jungsu emerges from his, towel draped over one arm, ratty home clothes over the other. "Don't sleep so late today," he says en route to the bathroom. "Have to be up in five hours." 

Donghae waits until the bathroom door is closed and the sound of the shower going before he turns off his PSP and goes to the kitchen. Hyukjae doesn't move from where he's leaning against the kitchen sink, legs planted on the ground looking like they might fold under him any minute, dirty mug discarded in the sink. His eyeliner is smudged under his left eye, dark and indistinct. Donghae smoothes it out with his thumb. "Hey."

Hyukjae works his hands loosely around Donghae's waist. "Are we still going out?" 

"Not if you're too tired."

"It's not like I'll be able to sleep even if I go to bed, anyway," Hyukjae sighs. He closes his eyes and his head comes down on Donghae's shoulder. He's breathing slowly, almost painfully, pushing out each breath like he doesn't have the energy for it, and it seems to Donghae that he's about to disintegrate. 

"I want to go out with you," Hyukjae says into his shoulder.

"But you don't seem like you can even walk," Donghae says, settling his fingertips into Hyukjae's dark brown hair. The roots are black. The colour is going to change again. "I don't want to have to piggyback you. This isn't a drama, you know." 

Hyukjae laughs a little and raises his head. Donghae's about to brush his fingers over Hyukjae's eyelids, over his nose and cheeks and mouth, so beautiful even with the tired make-up, when the bathroom door opens and they're suddenly standing more than inches apart, Hyukjae turning to scrub the mug clean. 

Jungsu yawns audibly as he crosses the living room. "I'm going to die early," he mumbles pathetically and disappears into his bedroom.

"You don't have to piggyback me. I'll crawl," Hyukjae says, turning back with smiling eyes and Donghae almost, almost kisses him. 

… …

It's mid-summer, but the near ending rain has made everything cold. They skirt puddles on the uneven sidewalks, feel the dampness gathering on the soles of their shoes. The night is still and yellowed over the glow of streetlights, and Donghae thinks of the two boys who'd used to walk home together on Saturday nights, skirting puddles skipping over cracks, one two five six eight streetlights, laughing, arguing, sixteen years old with no idea of the incandescence and heartbreak of the world lying at their feet. He reaches out to hold Hyukjae's hand. 

"I missed you so much today," he says. "I won't get to see you tomorrow, too." 

The angle of the yellow light shadows Hyukjae's quick smile. "We _live_ together, what's there to miss?" 

"Living together doesn't mean I'm _seeing_ you," Donghae insists. "We live with Kangin hyung too and we almost never see him unless it's for work." 

"Mmm," Hyukjae says thoughtfully, splashing through a tiny puddle. "We're colleagues after all." 

"Say that again and I'll do a lot worse than this," Donghae threatens, pulling him near and poking him right in the space between shoulder and armpit that makes Hyukjae jump. They muffle their laughter into their palms and hastily release their hands when a small group of tipsy guys wander past talking about big-busted girls. Cigarette smoke and alcohol. 

"Donghae-yah," Hyukjae says when they're alone again, "do you think that one day we'll end up calling each other by our stage names? Not on screen, I mean, but at home…privately…you know."

"I don't have a stage name. Donghae is just Donghae."

"You know what I mean."

"I'll always call you Hyukjae."

"You called me Eunhyukkie yesterday," Hyukjae says. 

Donghae blinks at him. 

"When you were helping Ryeowookie and Kyuhyunnie with dinner," Hyukjae clarifies. "You said that Eunhyukkie doesn't like overly-salty food, so don't put in too much salt."

"Oh," Donghae says, wondering if there's some sort of significance that he's supposed to be perceiving. 

Hyukjae gives up walking and collapses onto the curb of the pavement. It's a quiet side road and the watch hands are turning to three o'clock, so Donghae sits down beside him instead of pulling him up. Behind them, a little 24-hour convenience store spills white light onto the pavement and they really shouldn't be holding hands in such illumination, but Donghae links his fingers with Hyukjae's anyway. "So what if I call you Eunhyuk sometimes? You're still the same person. A Hyukjae by any other name smells just as bad, remember?" 

Hyukjae tries to grin, but his mouth falls into straight lines. "Sometimes I think I've become more Eunhyuk than Hyukjae," he says. "Like I'm just…on performance mode all the time." He looks at Donghae; his face is sober, too sober, and Donghae suddenly forgets to ruminate how long and how tight he can hold onto Hyukjae's hand before he has to let go. "I know this is going to come out all wrong," Hyukjae goes on, "but I feel…I'm beginning to feel that I can only be with you when I'm Eunhyuk." 

Donghae's too afraid to let go now. "What do you mean?" 

Hyukjae doesn't answer immediately and Donghae presses, "You think that this is all an act? Hyuk?" 

"It's not that. Not that _exactly_. It's just that, I feel that, if it's reality…"

"It _is_ reality." 

"If it's reality, I don't know how to continue." 

They're staring blankly at the empty road and closed shops when Donghae finally says, "I'm not playing, Hyukjae."

"I know." Hyukjae sounds distressed. He tries to slip his hand away but Donghae holds on tight, grips his fingers. "I just get the feeling that I can't face this as Hyukjae, I can only go on if it's Eunhyuk and Donghae and we're EunHae and everybody knows and nobody cares what we do…"

"This has nothing to do with EunHae! Nothing at all, Hyuk!" 

"But I can only touch you when I'm Eunhyuk." The yellow light shines directly onto the tears on Hyukjae's cheeks. "I can only get close to you when I'm Eunhyuk. I can't when I'm Hyukjae."

Donghae pulls him up and around the corner against the side of a building where they won't easily be seen. "EunHae is just an act," he says. "This is real, Hyukjae. This is you and me. Don't confuse it all up. I'm touching you now, we're close, we're _real_."

A breath, and then two. He can't see Hyukjae's face distinctly in the darkness, but he knows from the cadence of Hyukjae's breath that he's trying to stop his tears. Crazy, he thinks, how crazy that this is how well he knows Hyukjae, this is how intimate he is with every sign that Hyukjae's body gives him, this is how familiar he is with the way Hyukjae's mind works, and yet here they are, standing at the edge of confusion and misunderstanding, poised to plunge down. He puts his arms around Hyukjae's waist and pulls him close, closer still, until they're flush against each other, Hyukjae's hair tickling his cheek. "It's you I want to be with," he says into his ear. " _You_ , Lee Hyukjae." 

Hyukjae's head dips. "Why does this have to be so hard, Donghae?" 

"It doesn't have to be. It isn't."

"I'm still scared," Hyukjae says. "I try not to be, but I am."

"I'm scared…," Donghae begins, and pauses to lean his cheek against Hyukjae's for a moment. "I'm scared too."

They wait until they're back at the dorms, huddled under the covers of Donghae's bed, before they allow their mouths to meet. Sungmin is sleeping just two feet away, and he's the kind that wakes up if the bed so much as creaks, so they have to be quiet. It's tough, but it's better here than out in the living room or in the big bedroom; it is, really, the only place they have. Donghae wraps his leg around Hyukjae's hip and loses himself in the taste of Hyukjae's mouth, the intoxicating push of his tongue, the weight of his breath, the intimacy and comfort and rightness of being so close to Hyukjae. He won't, he thinks, he won't ever be this close to anyone else, he'll never feel this oneness with another person. 

"Donghae," Hyukjae whispers into his jaw and Donghae slides his hand down, over his chest and midriff and into the tiny curve of his waist meeting hip. His fingers linger, and Hyukjae sighs. Then he moves again, down down no, stop, this is too much, I won't, I won't; but Hyukjae has already stiffened and Donghae's just a little too late when he stops because Hyukjae is already clamped up, whispering, "No, _no_."

He disengages his arms and pulls away and the distance between them feels huge even though they're in the same narrow bed. 

"No," Hyukjae says again, turning on his side. 

Donghae touches his shoulder tentatively and swallows hard when Hyukjae flinches. "I'm sorry, Hyukkie."

"Not that." 

"I'm sorry, I won't, I really won't." 

"I can't…not yet." 

"I know. It's okay. I'm sorry." He can't say how much he has fantasised about this, how he jerks off in the shower to the image of Hyukjae's face and the memory of his kisses, burning still on his lips, on his tongue, sweet and aloof and maddening. He can't think about that now. "Hyuk? Please don't be angry…I'm sorry."

Hyukjae reaches over his shoulder and pulls Donghae up against his back. "Never mind. Let's sleep." 

Donghae presses his forehead into the nape of Hyukjae's neck. Take it step by step. Step by step, step by step, step by step, how many steps do they need to take? How wide are those steps? How high?

They'll climb it together. They'll be okay. They're together now. Stay still, stay still, don't wake him. Feel him beside you, feel him breathe, feel how strong his heartbeat is. It's okay. We're together now. 

… …

"Chi!"

"No, no, hyung, if you're throwing out three identical tiles it's _pong_ not _chi_."

"Does it even matter? You see my tiles, you get my meaning."

"But you'll be confusing everyone if you do it your way, hyung!"

"So? That's what I call my 'distraction tactic', haha." 

"Hyung, you can't…"

Hankyung leans over and pats Zhou Mi's arm. '"What Heechul's actually saying is 'I will say _pong_ next time'," he explains kindly. 

Youngwoon, still lying on the living room floor where he'd passed out four hours earlier, snorts with laughter. Heechul needs his own translator, he says, but Donghae's really thinking of how nice it is seeing Hankyung being able to interact with someone in his own language and culture. Sometimes they feel sorry for him, because no matter how they valiantly try to learn _ni hao_ with all its proper inflections or how much broken Mandarin Siwon and occasionally Heechul drop his way, he's still that little bit different; that little distant from the rest of them. It is hateful to be different. Donghae knows how it feels. 

It is then that he spots Jongwoon beckoning mysteriously at him from the doorway of the big bedroom. Jongwoon has a peculiar liking for being mysterious; nobody understands it, and Hyukjae had once attempted to analyse it as 'bringing flavour into his mundane life' (Hyukjae is such a jerk, really, when he wants to be) and then narrowly avoided a cuff from Jongwoon's small but powerful hands (Hyukjae is such an easy target, really, when they want him to be). Jongwoon shuts the bedroom door behind him when Donghae enters and he has an awful moment of wondering if Jongwoon is going to confess to him when he (blessedly!) sees Sungmin curled up in Shindong's blankets, comfortably nibbling at a digestive biscuit. 

"What's up, hyung?" Sungmin says. "What's all this provocative mystery about? You're not planning on confessing to me or Donghae, are you?" 

"Shut up," Jongwoon hisses, sitting down on his own bed. "I called you in here for a serious discussion." 

Sungmin yawns, adorably, and Donghae settles down on Hyukjae's bed. Hyukjae had been in too much of a rush this morning to tidy it up in his usual obsessively neat style (soft toys lined up by the side, round shapes first, squares after) and so Donghae snuggles into the crumples in the bedsheets, cuddles the smiling monkey plushie with the oversized head that Hyukjae hugs when he goes to sleep. 

"We're all ears," Sungmin says. 

Jongwoon clears his throat. "Don't you think there's something up with Zhou Mi being at our dorm almost every day now?" 

"No?" Sungmin says. "He comes to play mahjong. Is there anything 'up' with that?" 

"Not the _mahjong_ , Min. You're so short-sighted. Haven't you heard the rumours coming from management lately? They're thinking of forming a Chinese sub-group out of us."

"I haven't heard of that, but then I'm not dating someone from the office," Sungmin says with a little laugh that earns him a glare from Jongwoon. 

"If you dare to broadcast that, Lee Sungmin…" 

"No, no, I won't breathe a word. Not a word. Not one." Sungmin holds up his hand in surrender. "But really, hyung, are they thinking seriously of doing that? We can't speak Chinese. Except Hankyung hyung, but he's another story." 

"It's something you can learn, can't you?" Jongwoon points out. "Anyway, we've got Hankyung hyung to do all the talking. I heard that they're thinking of adding two other Chinese members to the sub-group, and seeing as Zhou Mi is being ferried here every day by Seunghwan hyung, there's a high chance that he might be one of them. Now you see what I'm getting at?" 

"Ah," Donghae says, suddenly impressed with Jongwoon's deductive skills. 

"Wouldn't that mean that whoever's in the sub-group might be stationed in China or Taiwan for activities?" Sungmin says. "Or at the very least, shuttling back and forth from South Korea to China? There isn't any market here for Chinese songs!"

"Of course if it's for _Chinese_ songs it would be for _China_ ," Jongwoon says. "Anyway, as for who's in it, Teukie hyung or Heechul hyung or Hyukjae won't be. They've got way too many obligations here to be flown to China for a month. I don't think Youngwoon hyung will be in it either, they'd want to put him in more shows, earn more money for us. The way I see it, there's a big chance…" 

"You've been thinking this out, haven't you?" Sungmin says. "Hyungie, you can be so creepy."

Jongwoon ignores him. "…that Ryeowookie will be in it, and maybe Kyuhyunnie. Or, even, either one of you." 

"I have Chunji," Sungmin says. 

"Donghae then. Isn't that likely? He's not involved in any sub-group, he's cute, lots of girls like him."

Donghae doesn't realise he's crumpling the blanket until his hand screams with cramp. "I don't want to go to China." 

"Why not? It'll be a great opportunity. A market of one billion people compared to 49 million." 

"I like being here." 

"Donghae will cry into his pillow every night," Sungmin teases. "Wouldn't be able to stand being away from Teukie hyung and Eunhyukkie's apron strings for a month, huh, Donghae?" 

Donghae throws the monkey at Sungmin, who ducks. The monkey hits the wall and lands on the floor with a soft-sounding _thump_ and Donghae yells that Hyukjae's going to be mad now that his toy has picked up a thousand germs and Sungmin yells back that you were the one who threw it in the first place, wise guy, and Jongwoon plugs his ears. 

"Well," he says, "you can yell all you want, but ultimately it won't be your decision to make." 

"Don't sound so scary about it," Sungmin says. "It's a career option, not a march towards death." 

Donghae picks up the monkey and ties its ears into a knot at the back of its head. Hyukjae will probably be very upset to see his toy being manhandled on top of gathering a thousand germs, but it's okay. Everyone knows that Donghae is attention-needy anyway. Jungsu will say that it was an outlet for his agitation of mind. 

… …

He's outside the KTR studio ten minutes before it ends, chewing on hot gooey takoyaki balls that he'd bought along the way. They burn his tongue. It's drizzling again, so his umbrella leaves a shower of rain droplets on the vinyl flooring right next to the sign that says 'PLEASE LEAVE YOUR WET UMBRELLA BY THE DOOR.' He's still speculating if he can somehow scrub out the droplets with the soles of his shoes when Jungsu and Hyukjae exit the studio with caps pulled low over their faces. 

"Trust you to drip all over the floor, Donghae," Jungsu mutters as he brushes past him, and Donghae raises his eyebrows at Hyukjae. But Hyukjae doesn't say anything other than "Hey" and it falls to Seunghwan, after some close questioning, to explain that they'd had one of their usual conversations about their ideal wives/girlfriends/dates and Hyukjae had 'revealed' too much of Jungsu's flirtatiousness behind the scenes which would, Seunghwan concedes, be okay if Jungsu's current girl hadn't gotten angry and sent him a text of asterisk-spelled words. Which, Seunghwan concedes again while rubbing his temples, wouldn't be a big deal but she and Teukie have been having problems lately and this is like the icing on the cake or the gochujang sauce on bibimbap or the wasabi on sushi and you know what, let's just stay out of it. 

"What are you doing here anyway?" he blinks at Donghae like he's suddenly aware of who he's talking to. 

"I'm taking Hyukjae out for supper," Donghae says, trying to sound as cheery as possible, and Seunghwan shoots him a look that says, I've never met anyone with a worse sense of timing than you. 

Seunghwan attempts to turn up the volume of the radio in the van; Jungsu reaches out and turns it back down. They seem to get stopped by an inordinate amount of red lights; the red lights take decades to change into green. Donghae works his hand briefly into Hyukjae's, but Hyukjae lets his palm lie still and unresponsive and eventually he gives up, tries to distract himself by people-watching through the window. It's hard, though, to people-watch when you're moving at 70 kilometres per hour and even harder still when Hyukjae leans forward and says, with an edge to his voice that he recognises as just-spilling-over temper, "You know, Teukie hyung, you really don't have to be such a jackass about the whole thing." 

Jungsu's head whips back. "What did you just say?"

"I said, you don't have to be such a jackass. It's not my fault that you have a hypersensitive girlfriend." 

"So that makes it okay to broadcast your made-up stories on radio, does it?" 

"Don't say that as though you haven't done the same thing to me! Goddamn it, how many times have you told some weird concocted story about me and some girl…" 

"I've never gone overboard!"

"I didn't go overboard! You're only accusing me of going overboard because your damn girlfriend got all pity party over you asking for some celebrities' phone numbers. The fuck, hyung. Don't take it out on me because your personal life happens to be shitty." 

"Shut up, you two," Seunghwan says in his best imitation of the invisible man. 

"Right," Jungsu says, "and your personal life just happens to be stellar, doesn't it, Hyukjae? I have to concoct stories about you to make you more interesting because you've never had anything with any girl at all, except Miyoung, and that was short-lived, wasn't it? If I told the _real_ stories about you, you probably wouldn't even survive till the second broadcast."

Hyukjae says something, but Donghae doesn't process it because he's suddenly shaking against the car door, ramming his fingernails into his palms. 

"Don't think I haven't noticed what you and Donghae have been up to over the past month," Jungsu says. "You think you're being so smart sneaking out late at night and pretending that everything's normal, but what you've been doing is big enough to bring us all down with you and you don't even have the courtesy to inform me of it. You want to talk about personal lives being shitty, Hyukjae? You want to talk about going overboard? Take a look at yourself." 

"What the hell, Teukie…" Seunghwan begins, but stops when he catches sight of Donghae's face in the rear view mirror. He pulls the van up by the side of the road and they listen to the ticking of the hazard lights, the rush of passing wheels on gravel, the long long silence that follows. The many silences. The screaming silences, until Hyukjae manages to say, strangled, near convulsive, "Does anyone else know?" 

"That isn't what you should be concerned about right now," Jungsu says. 

Donghae fumbles for purchase on the car door. He doesn't know why he's short of breath like he's been running miles, but he can't seem to work an adequate amount of oxygen into his lungs, doesn't seem to remember how the mechanics of breathing work. "Hyung, don't. Please don't." 

Jungsu stares at the both of them. It's dark and they can't see his face clearly but they trust him, they want desperately to trust him because he's their leader Eeteuk and their almost big brother Park Jungsu and he has always come through for them, all the way through breakages and mishaps and relationship-destroying quarrels and surely, surely, he will come through for them in this, too (why should he? asks a cynical self; but they don't listen to it, they try to ignore). 

When he speaks, it's as though his voice is barely filtering through wavering static, disjointed, incomprehensible, miles and miles of water in between. "You better stop this before anyone else finds out." 

"Please don't say that to us," Donghae says, forcing himself to release his fingernails from his palms. "Hyung, please. You have no idea how hard it has been to get to where we are. We can't just stop it like it's nothing." 

"So you're telling me that you're serious?" Jungsu turns back to stare out of the windscreen. The wipers moan painfully across the screen, once, twice, three times, and Jungsu's saying, "You can't afford to be serious in this business. Not now, not ever, when it's about something like this."

"Guys," says Seunghwan, "I'm going to have to stop you here. I don't know exactly what's going on but if it's what I think it is, Teukie's right. You can't mess around like this at this point in time, or any other point in time, for that matter. You have to be out of your minds. Donghae, Hyukjae, I thought you would know better than this." 

Hyukjae speaks again after innumerable splattered raindrops. "If it wasn't for business…would you say the same thing to us?" 

"Yes," Seunghwan says without missing a beat. "You know it as well as I do. There isn't any room for gays in this country." 

And then Hyukjae's out of the van in seconds, door slamming so hard behind him that Jungsu winces. Donghae grabs his bag and follows him and something inside him hopes that Jungsu will run after them, tell them that he's sorry and everything's going to be okay, but he doesn't know if he can face Jungsu again without wanting to hold his head and scream at him, howl even, in all kinds of words about disappointment and betrayal. Hyukjae's five steps ahead of him, charging down the road like something's after him, and Donghae wants to catch up to him and hold his hand, maybe, but there's too much pain surrounding Hyukjae now, too much overwhelming, untouchable pain, and so he hangs back. He doesn't know what to do. He thinks that this is how a person suffering from hypothermia must feel just before the onset of death; heartstoppingly numb and yet gripped by so many little sharp pains that he can't identify the source of the original big pain anymore. 

They draw together five minutes later, maybe ten, and Hyukjae's crying big tears into his palm as they continue walking in the midnight silence. How would it feel to walk in the daytime, Donghae wonders, just like this, hand-in-hand, in the daytime? How would it feel to be able to stop worrying about the faces of the people around them? 

They walk the entire remainder of the way to the dorms, two hours past shops and residences and street lights and late-night pubs with sweat pouring down their foreheads and over their chests, and when they finally reach the dorm they've stopped crying but there still isn't anything to say. It had been drizzling all the way, miserable and maddening and unstoppable, incongruous with the hot night, and they track wet footprints on the floor when they step in, close the door softly behind them as though nobody will hear. 

… …

Hyukjae leaves the dorm early the next morning and doesn't come back that night. Seunghwan reports that he's gone back home for a breather, he's fine and he'll still be up and about his schedules, but they won't be seeing him back at the dorm until he feels like coming back. He looks like he hasn't slept all night, but nobody notices except Donghae. They're all nonchalant about the news; who hasn't felt the need to back home once in a while for breathers, or, in plain language, to get away before they commit a crime by bashing all the members' heads against a wall? Love has its limits. Sungmin takes over the task of ensuring Hyukjae's space in the big bedroom remains neat and nice-smelling, and life goes on. 

Donghae tunes in to KTR as he does every night if he's within reach of a radio. They're joking about Hyukjae's failures at learning how to control manual gear during his driving lessons and Jungsu having failed his first practical driving test, and it's so weary, somehow, listening to them talk as though they hadn't been biting out words at each other the previous night. Donghae turns it off ten minutes in and goes out for coffee, but even though he heaps in two and a half packets of white sugar the bitterness still burns into his tongue (he thinks that he would be joking, angrily, about how frustrating it is that emotion colours over even the solid, practical taste of food). 

Jungsu tries to apologise the next day. He was over-tired, he says, and frustrated, and things really haven't been going well. It's no excuse though, what I said was really uncalled for and rude and I'll understand if you don't want to listen to this. Still, I'm really sorry for the way I spoke to the both of you. 

"You still wouldn't support us, would you?" Donghae says, and Jungsu sighs, to be frank, there's really no way out of this, supporting you would only be harming you in the long run…; and this is where Donghae tunes him out, because despite all the nice genuine words of apology he's still not on their side and Donghae doesn't have the strength nor inclination to listen to someone who isn't on their side. 

_I'm at war with the world now ^^_ , he texts Hyukjae (he doesn't dare to call him now, not when he's within hearing distance of the rest, which is weird but maybe somehow he has become hypersensitive too). Hyukjae calls him but he's talking to Ryeowook and Youngwoon just then so he hesitates too long and eventually his handphone stops buzzing in mid-song. 

Half a day later, his phone rings again and this time he's out of the dorm lingering by the refrigerated drinks corner of a nondescript convenience store, so he picks up. 

"I need to talk to you," Hyukjae says. "Can you stay over for the night?" 

Youngwoon offers to give him a lift since he has forty minutes till his next schedule, and anyway, just consider it a hyung's responsibility since knowin' you two lovebirds you'd probably be wailing your eyes out if you're separated for another ten seconds. Donghae stares at him but the word means nothing to Youngwoon at all, he's bopping his head to Usher on the CD player, I guess I gotta give you part two of my confessions. How can someone bop his head to a song that's so sad? Donghae leans against the window not watching anything until they've turned into a side street and there they are again, one two three four five six seven eight, it's the house right at the end of the road. Youngwoon stifles a yawn against the back of his hand and says I'll see you tomorrow for the performance at wherever, where the heck are we going? Ah well, remember not to burn down Hyukjae's home.

He's ringing the doorbell with the corniest love phrases in his mind when Hyukjae finally opens the door and he doesn't get the chance to say them because Hyukjae's in his arms and all he can think of is that they're still okay, they'll be okay as long as they can hold each other like this. 

"I wanted to tell you that I've talked to Jungsu hyung and it's kind of settled between us now," Hyukjae says later when they're sitting on his bed with Donghae's duffel bag dumped on the floor. "He's really sorry about it and it was a pretty rough night for him that time…I think we should let it be. He doesn't _hate_ us."

"But he doesn't support us either," Donghae argues.

"Maybe that's too much to ask," Hyukjae sighs. "For now he isn't going to tell anyone, and he says he won't mention it again unless we do, so…he won't try to break us up, you know, Hae. He isn't the type who would do that." 

Donghae strokes the back of Hyukjae's hand with his fingertips. "I don't know if I can be the same again with him."

"You'll try?" Hyukjae says. "I don't want us to keep harbouring unhappiness towards him. He's Jungsu hyung, after all."

"Why can't we hold a grudge once in a while?" Donghae says just for the sake of argument because he's smiling now, looking at Hyukjae's hopeful face. "You know, Hyuk. All the way here…I was so afraid that you were going to tell me that you wanted to end it." 

"I...thought of it," Hyukjae says. "But I. It wouldn't be. I can't…" He stops, stumbles over his words because he's Hyukjae and he's impossibly ineloquent when it comes to things that matter. The bright, the charming, the witty Eunhyuk whom variety show producers adore, Donghae thinks while watching him fumble; the one who makes everyone laugh, the smooth-talking DJ, the silly joker; he can't say a simple, heartfelt _I love you_. Hyukjae's onto fidgeting now and Donghae reaches out, cups his face and ghosts his thumb over the curve of his cheekbone. I have enough _I love you_ 's for the both of us, he wants to say, but maybe he's impossibly ineloquent too, because he's suddenly crying and Hyukjae has abandoned stammering to laugh at him. 

"That's my Donghae," he says, and it's amazing, quite quite amazing, how much that one word means. 

The door is closed and locked, and so they kiss. It's too hard to stop. Donghae knows where this is headed and he wants to restrain himself because Hyukjae's not ready, Hyukjae won't like it, but right now he has mental capacity enough only to concentrate on the warmth of Hyukjae's mouth. On tracing the line of Hyukjae's jaw with his lips and tongue, on running his mouth over Hyukjae's neck and hearing a breath leave Hyukjae's mouth, soft and yielding, erotic like nothing he's ever heard before (is it okay to love like this, to want like this?). He's stroking Hyukjae's abdomen under his shirt and he feels Hyukjae's fingers on the small of his back and maybe this force of emotion is something that people only experience once in their lives, or maybe some don't ever experience it at all; stronger than hatred or jealousy or lust, stronger and innumerable times more beautiful.

"I can't…I won't if you don't want to," he gasps against Hyukjae's skin, shaking, because even though everything in him is pushing him forward he'll find enough energy to pull back if Hyukjae says no. But Hyukjae only pulls him closer and whispers, "It's okay." 

Take it slow, he thinks, slow and careful and luxurious like smoky sentimental ballads, like moonlight and love songs, but his body has different ideas. Hyukjae's legs are wrapped around his and they're hardening more with every breathless brush of tongue. All the fantasies of the past three years coming together all at once, push and pull, thrust, Hyukjae is gripping fistfuls of his shirt and moaning into his neck, incoherent slurred together words. Not quite making love in the strictest sense of the word but so much raw passion, so much desire and want and, Donghae thinks, love, because it can't possibly feel so good if it isn't Hyukjae moving with him, discovering with him a sort of rhythm that they've fallen into, sloppy and yet so perfect, rising and falling, right there. 

Hyukjae throws his head back and chokes; he's breathing through his mouth and Donghae watches a heated flush work its way down Hyukjae's cheek to his throat, watches the perspiration forming on his forehead as he rolls his hips against Hyukjae's, and they're so far gone now that they're rocking together almost mindlessly, murmuring words that don't make sense except for _Hyukjae_ and _Donghae_ and the repeated, the breathless, refrain of those four distinct syllables. Donghae wraps his hands around Hyukjae's hips and shudders and grinds down hard, once, twice, and suddenly it's too fucking much and they're flung wide open and breathless, coming into their pants, bodies glued together, groans mixed into each other's mouths. 

They lie side by side for a few dazed moments afterwards, hands only grazing, and while it seems like there's a multitude of things to say there's really only one, and that is that they've gone beyond coming back, they're too deeply enmeshed now. Hyukjae turns over on his side and Donghae feels his fingertips on his face, moving slowly from eye to nose to mouth, and he doesn't want to think anymore of the boys they'd been, he wants to think of the men they'll become. 

"Hyukjae-yah…"

Hyukjae spreads his fingers on Donghae's chest, looks at him, smiles at how fast his heart is beating under his palm. 

"I really, really…" Donghae swallows a little. "Really, really like you."

Hyukjae lies back down beside him and holds his hand and in half an hour's time he'll have to leave for KTR, but they can take it slow now, they've got enough time. 

… …

In August, Sungmin has to shave half his head for the image of their new album (pseudo-punk, Hyukjae says, and just to drive the point home he lends Sungmin hairclips to keep his hair out of his eyes when they're at home) and Dong Bang Shin Ki comes back from Japan for a couple of weeks, so Junsu and Yunho are located somewhere within the perimeter of Seoul and dragged out for a nostalgic guys' night out. 

"Japan is a great place, but I admit I miss hearing Korean. You guys are so lucky," Yunho says, downing half a mug of beer while Junsu ogles the boobs of a skinny long-haired girl by the bar. 

"Hey, you're making it big everywhere in Asia with all your acapella stuff. Don't turn around and tell us poor half-shaved, overworked and underpaid people that we're lucky," Sungmin says, flipping his hair out of his eyes for the thousandth time (he absolutely refuses to wear the hairclips in public). 

" _You're_ the only half-shaved one, hyung," Donghae points out, and they laugh at their dazzling wit and toast each other with orange juice (Hyukjae) and beer (everyone else alcohol-corrupted). 

"You'll be making it big in Asia before long, anyway," Junsu says. "I was in the office today talking to a couple of the high-ups and someone was mentioning something about an Asian tour." 

"Don't say anything," Hyukjae warns. "If you even say a word, you'll jinx it." 

Junsu falls on him in a flurry of pummels and Yunho grins above their yells. "It's good to see that things don't change, put them together and they'll still try to murder each other," he says. 

One hour and forty minutes later, Yunho and Sungmin are on the dance floor wriggling with a hundred other sweaty bodies, Junsu is valiantly attempting to chat up the skinny long-haired girl by the bar, and Donghae is slumped over Hyukjae's shoulder sleepily examining his fingers. He thinks he might be a little in love with Hyukjae's fingers, they're so long and pretty and well-shaped, and the nail on his little right finger is ragged at the ends because it's the only nail that Hyukjae allows himself to nibble in times of extreme stress. 

"I think your fingers need a ring," he says. "What do you think?"

Hyukjae laughs. "We can't wear couple rings, you idiot." 

"I'll buy a thick artistic one," Donghae says, tapping Hyukjae's right ring finger. "You'll have to wear it here."

"I won't."

"I'll engrave on the ring, 'Lee Donghae's property'."

"I doubly won't wear it!" 

"Right," Donghae says happily, getting off Hyukjae's shoulder for another gulp of beer. "I'll go get it next week." 

"Is it just me or have you guys become even more soppy while I was away?" Junsu says, sliding into his seat and grabbing Sungmin's discarded beer. 

Hyukjae looks around for the girl, but she appears to have disappeared. "Did you get rejected?"

"She's attached," Junsu sighs. "She even has a neoprint of her boyfriend stuck onto the back of her phone." 

Hyukjae sympathises, and Donghae puts a hand on his thigh, snuggles into his neck with a happy-sounding noise. Junsu sighs. "This is ironic, you know. We're supposed to be sought after and everyone says we have a thousand girls at our feet but I can't seem to hook even one. For a while in Tokyo I was going out with a production assistant, she was really sweet, you know, but she got tired of waiting around for me all the time. Got dumped a couple months in. Hey, is he sleeping?" 

"He's been stuck in the recording studio almost the entire day. He wouldn't have come out if it wasn't for you and Yunho," Hyukjae says, linking his fingers almost unconsciously through Donghae's. 

"Oh." Junsu taps his fingers against the tabletop in a sort of rhythm that Hyukjae can see but can't hear. "Why'd you break up with Miyoungie by the way? Thought you really liked her and she wasn't fussy about you having to be in disguise." 

Hyukjae hesitates long enough for Junsu to prod him under the table and Donghae makes complaining noises when Hyukjae's shoulder shifts. He's half-asleep now and Hyukjae puts his arms around Donghae's waist, pulls him an inch or so closer. "I fell in love with him," he says just loud enough for Junsu to hear, watching the expression on his childhood friend's face. 

Junsu starts to laugh, but when Hyukjae doesn't he gulps and blinks, like a startled rabbit, for something approaching eternity. "But you mean, uh, in love, as in, you…" 

"As in he's in love with me, and I'm in love with him, and we're seeing each other." 

"Damn, Hyukjae," Junsu says intelligently, and continues blinking. 

"Nobody else knows except Teukie hyung, so you don't have to yell about me not telling you earlier." 

"No," Junsu gapes. "It's, um, it's okay." 

They sit in silence watching Yunho and Sungmin dance battling each other and then Hyukjae says, "Well", and Junsu says, "Yeah, well", and then Junsu starts to laugh and everything becomes comfortable in a moment. "Who would have thought," he says, knocking his glass against Hyukjae's. "When I think about it now it makes sense but I wouldn't have thought of it before, you know? You and Donghae, crazy. But hey, if you're happy…if you really like him…"

"I've never liked anyone like that before," Hyukjae says quietly, and Junsu grins and toasts him. 

"I'm not going to say anything else," Junsu says. "You know it already anyway, don't you, without me having to say anything about…?"

"I do. Thanks for not saying it." 

"Imagine it," Junsu says, and leans over to punch Hyukjae's shoulder affectionately. "Maybe you two can come visit me in Japan some time. I'll bring you to the boonies. Nobody will know you there and you can hold hands and be disgustingly soppy. Not that you aren't already soppy, actually."

"I don't know whether to be offended or grateful," Hyukjae says, and Junsu knocks his fist into Donghae's head when he tries to hug Hyukjae clumsily around the neck. Hyukjae catches Donghae half a second before he whacks his forehead on the table and arranges him on his lap before he returns the hug. "Don't think he'll like this much."

"Like I care," Junsu says. "I'm entitled to hug my best buddy. Or, you know, my slave."

Donghae sleeps all the way through the rest of the night of drinking and dancing and, in Sungmin's case, picking up girls, and by the time they're ready to call it quits it's four-thirty in the morning and Yunho is grousing about having to be up in exactly two hours. Junsu's staggering a little, so Sungmin kidnaps his car keys and pushes them into the taxi queue while Hyukjae tries to rouse Donghae.

"Muh?" Donghae says, opening half an eye. 

"Time to get up, we're going home."

"Wan' to sleep."

"You've been sleeping for three hours." 

"Wan' t'sleep more, Hyukkie."

Hyukjae pulls him out of his seat before his head meets his chest. "No, we're going home and you're going to walk yourself out of here." 

Donghae stumbles over six steps as Hyukjae pushes him out of the club and falls into a heap at the entrance. Hyukjae sighs and squats down beside him. "Fine, can you do one thing for me?" 

"One thing." 

"Yes, just one thing."

"One thing for Hyukchae."

"Put your arms around my neck. I'm going to piggyback you." He turns and waits until Donghae's arms land heavily on his shoulders. Mostly-asleep Donghae is heavier than dead furniture and all the muscles in his thighs scream as he tries to force himself upright, but finally he has Donghae's legs secure in the crooks of his arms and perspiration raining down the sides of his face as he walks towards the taxi queue to find Sungmin. 

"Hyukkie, s'that you?" Donghae mumbles and his breath tickles, nuzzles into Hyukjae's ear.

"It's me." 

"….mmm." Donghae's hold tightens and he falls back into sleep.

"Need some help?" Sungmin asks when he sees them. 

"No, it's okay, I've got it," Hyukjae says, leaning against the wall to take some of Donghae's weight off his back. 

"I've called for a cab, it should be here in about half a minute."

"Good," Hyukjae says, wishing he could flop into bed and remain there till the next millennium. 

It's close to an hour later when he finally gets Donghae showered and changed and pushed into bed. Donghae says exactly three things throughout the entire procedure, "Water's cold" and "Hyukkie?" and "Ticklish", but since he's compliant Hyukjae wraps the blanket securely around him as a reward for being an obedient drunk. 

"You should probably just stay here instead of waking up everyone in the big bedroom," Sungmin says from his own bed. 

"Yeah," Hyukjae agrees, because he's so tired now he's pretty sure his bones have melted into goo. He collapses beside Donghae and manages to get half the blanket over himself before he's in a sleep so deep that he doesn't feel Sungmin staggering across to lift his leg onto the mattress and under the covers. 

… …

Donghae wouldn't consider himself a particularly horny guy. He has his own urges, of course, just like all other healthy twenty year olds, but he doesn't think he's too bad. He doesn't understand why some of his ex-classmates in school find it fun to have 'porn nights' together where they turn off the lights and watch porn movies in someone's bedroom until they've all jerked off to their satisfaction. He doesn't find erotic magazines particularly fascinating (though he _has_ analysed with Heechul the possibility of silicone in the models' boobs in Jungsu's erotic photo book) and he doesn't really think about sex _that_ often; or at least, not half as much as some of the other members, who crack all sorts of dirty jokes and tell hushed stories of the sex scandals within the entertainment industry (Youngwoon, in particular, seems to be intimate with all sorts of juicy details). 

But that was before the grinding session in Hyukjae's bedroom, and now Donghae is mildly worried to find that whenever Hyukjae hip thrusts during the dance rehearsals for their upcoming album's choreography or practises his stony seductive look in the mirror, his thoughts instantly dispatch themselves to fingering invisibly at Hyukjae's buttons and zipper. They haven't really done anything sexual since that afternoon and Hyukjae remains confident only of kissing and a certain degree of gropage (that takes place above crotch level), but Donghae goes on the internet on Shindong's laptop anyway to search discreetly for material on sex between men. It all sounds a little complicated with the preparation and the need for proper lubrication and he always messes up the deleting of history and cookies so Shindong's laptop dies and after the third time he's banned forever from touching it. Junsu suggests that he try using Hyukjae's laptop instead ("could also be a hint, you know, that you guys are _guys_ and there's no real need to be so shy about sex") but it's hard to broach the subject with Hyukjae when all he talks about these days is the choreography and one is supposed to be professional and work-focused instead of ass-focused.

It's all very frustrating for him as an almost-twenty-year-old with a romantic partner who specialises in being a sex object until it just so happens one afternoon when they're making out in the single cubicle toilet of their dance studios that Hyukjae suddenly gets very, very hard and Donghae notices because Hyukjae hasn't had the same amount of practice in hiding involuntary erections. 

"Um," Hyukjae says desperately when Donghae rests his palm lightly, almost teasingly, on his bulge. 

"Got something down your pants, Hyukjae?" 

"Uh…"

"Come on, you don't have to be embarrassed about it. You don't know how many times this has happened to me." 

Hyukjae clamps his eyes shut, but even with the lack of windows to the soul he looks terrified and Donghae thinks it's adorable. "I can help you take care of it," he says, squeezing the bulge temptingly, and smirks when Hyukjae lets out a squeak.

"Uh, I…"

Donghae rubs him a couple of times and observes with satisfaction the tension forming in Hyukjae's jaw. "How about it, Hyuk?" 

Hyukjae doesn't say anything, only breathes really hard through his nose and Donghae takes it as an affirmative sign. He works his hand past the zippers and waistbands and he's almost, almost touching and he feels a hint of pulse and soft skin, just a quarter of an inch more, and then Hyukjae suddenly gasps and wrenches away so hard that Donghae's flung against the sink, instantly bruising his hip. 

"What the hell, Hyuk?" he yells, and then he realises that the terror on Hyukjae's face isn't the adorable kind at all and the tension in his jaw isn't sexually induced and then all he wants is to hit his forehead against the wall for having been so insensitive. 

"I'm sorry," Hyukjae pants, half reaching out for him and half withdrawing at the same time, "did I hurt you?"

"No, you didn't…"

"I didn't mean to throw you back like that." 

"I know."

"It's just…"

"I won't do anything unless you want me to."

"I know I'm being stupid," Hyukjae says, sitting on the toilet bowl and taking deep, measured breaths to presumably calm himself down, "and I'm really trying to get out of this…this _thing_ , I _know_ you won't hurt me, but…"

"Hey, it's okay." Donghae kneels down beside him and grasps one of his hands. "It's not like we're in a rush or anything." 

"Just a little bit more time. I promise I'll get over it." 

"It really doesn't matter."

"It does." Hyukjae stares at the tiled flooring. "I keep thinking that…if we actually do it, it'll mean that we're really…"

"Gay?" Donghae says, and kisses his hand when Hyukjae flinches. "I thought we'd decided to erase that word from our vocabulary." 

"There's still a 'y' left, and half of an 'a' in mine," Hyukjae says, but Donghae's so relieved to see him smiling that he can't find any frustration in Hyukjae's lingering insecurities. 

"I'll promise to be as good as I can until you're ready, but till then you have to tone down on the sexy." 

"Am I?" Hyukjae asks, a hint of excitement in his tone, and Donghae laughs as he pulls him off the toilet seat and presses a chaste (so chaste!) kiss on his cheek. 

"I know you don't need me to convince you to believe it." 

Hyukjae holds him back a second before they leave. "Just in case you think that this is about _you_ and that I…I don't find you attractive or something…"

"I don't even consider that as a possibility," Donghae says haughtily, and then they're laughing together, running hand-in-hand out of the toilet back to the rehearsal room where Siwon asks whether they'd had diarrhoea or something else equally unavoidable and urgent, staying in that toilet for so long, and Jungsu immediately calls for another choreography practice so everyone forgets. 

… …

One and a half months later, Hyukjae still apparently feels apologetic, because when the first few weeks of crazy promotional activities are over and they've nursed their aches and cramps back to a bearable level, he begs a couple of days off from Seunghwan and Kibum and offers Donghae a ride to Mokpo with his newly acquired driving skills and second-hand Hyundai. Heechul disapproves of the plan, didn't he hit the curb just last Wednesday going out to the convenience store for milk? but Donghae's so happy at the thought of two whole days of Hyukjae that he tunes out the sensible warnings. 

They start late on the first day because the pre-recording for KTR ran beyond the allotted time, but at two o' clock they're cruising the Seohaean Highway with Epik High on the radio. They yell out the chorus to 'Fan' as Hyukjae smoothly changes lanes and Donghae chomps the kimbap that Ryeowook had made for them that morning. The traffic is light, the bass is pounding on the stereo, and they talk nonsense that they only remember fragments of ten minutes later, something about smelly socks and Jungsu being a food thief in the dorm and the clouds having weird shapes. 

They arrive at Donghae's house three hours and forty-five minutes later with no incident and Hyukjae crows about his driving skills until Donghae's mum opens the door and they busy themselves with hugging her and piling all sorts of souvenirs and edibles into her hands. 

"Have they been feeding you properly over there?" she asks.

"No, so you'll have to cook up a really good dinner for us, eomeonim," Hyukjae says as roguishly as he dares.

She laughs, because she likes this skinny boy with the big smile whom Donghae talks about so often in his phone calls, and they empty the kitchen of all the snacks she'd prepared for them before Donghae takes him out on a grand tour of the neighbourhood. They swing a little on the playground where he'd 'fallen down and scraped both his knees', flip a couple of magazines in the bookstore where he 'used to borrow books from even though they didn't have a borrowing policy but the owners liked me so they gave me special privilege', stand outside the school where he 'spent my first six years', and finally walk back to his house because Hyukjae's feet are dying for a chair even though Donghae insists that he has to see his favourite arcade hangout. 

When Donghwa comes back that evening, they spend the whole night racing each other in fabulous sports cars or bashing each other up with cruel-looking weapons until Hyukjae falls asleep over his controller and Donghae has to pull him along the floor to the bedroom. Donghwa says that he's happy to see Donghae has really good friends in Seoul and Donghae contemplates just a moment, just a fraction of a minute, telling his brother the truth but he knows it won't be fair without consulting Hyukjae first, so he lets Donghwa poke him in the cheek for a good night. 

"I love you," Hyukjae murmurs into Donghae's ear when he rouses for a brief period and Donghae's heart beats so fast that he can't fall asleep until his mind has stopped screaming at him in happiness. 

The next morning they shower together for old times' sake and Donghae's trying really hard not to stare at Hyukjae's body. He can get through this without incident, he thinks, as long as he keeps his gaze at eye-level, and he's so focused on controlling himself that it's a shock when he suddenly feels Hyukjae's hand on him. He hadn't seen that coming, hadn't sniffed that coming, he can't quite believe it, and he stares slack-jawed as Hyukjae thumbs him lightly, rubs him into hardness with an expertise he hadn't quite expected. 

"I want to do this for you," Hyukjae says, and he can't think of anything to say to that, he's too overwhelmed. Then it's all touch and feeling and provocative strokes and at some point Donghae hits the wall with the back of his head, moans louder than the sound of the shower, because it's _Hyukjae_ touching him and _Hyukjae's_ breath on his face and _Hyukjae's_ fingers caressing him from base to tip, massaging his balls, thumbing his slit until he comes, loud and breathless, jerking and calling Hyukjae's name like the world for this moment has narrowed down only to them. 

They go for another sightseeing tour during the afternoon, but their hands get so busy under each other's shirts in quiet deserted street corners and it's so hard keeping away from the heat and softness of Hyukjae's mouth that they return to the bedroom less than an hour later, lock the door and spit into their hands multiple times as they discover and re-discover what makes the other gasp, moan, cry out, whip their heads against the pillow in soundless screams, and Donghae thinks that he'll never get tired of this, he'll always love the look in Hyukjae's eyes just before he comes. 

Donghae's mum provides a wonderful dinner that's nectar after all the physical exertion. Donghwa brings his girlfriend along to join them, a sweet, bright-eyed girl who tells the funniest jokes, and Donghae can almost believe that this is how it's going to be in the future, Donghwa with Sookyung and him with Hyukjae at the family table for years and years to come.

Hyukjae needs to be back in Seoul by six the next morning for some variety show recording, so they decide to start off at eleven o' clock that night, bunk in on a motel along the way, and continue driving once it's light. "Take good care of yourselves," his mum says, "come back soon", and Donghae wants to throw himself on her mercy, wants her to hug Hyukjae like he's going to be her son too, but he knows the time isn't ripe yet. So he gets into the passenger seat instead and kisses his mum one last time through the open car window before Hyukjae's calling out a goodbye and they're driving off and he's looking back at his mum standing by the front door, waving and smiling when Hyukjae switches on the hazard lights as a final farewell. 

… …

There's a tiny convenience store opposite the motel they've decided to crash at and Hyukjae says he has to run across for a couple of things, don't worry, I'll be back in five. Donghae sits on the bed and turns on the TV, but it's more fascinating studying the cracks in the walls and wondering how long the motel will last before giving up and collapsing, one day, in a heap of rubble and dismal neglected death. Kang Hodong is roaring on the TV set when Hyukjae walks in, strangely flushed, and sits down on the bed beside him. 

"What?" Donghae says, sensing odd, indefinable waves coming off Hyukjae's aura. 

Hyukjae lays out a couple of items on the mattress and Donghae looks and he isn't hearing Kang Hodong anymore or seeing the cracks in the walls because it's a pack of condoms and a tube of lubrication that guarantees maximum pleasure and… _oh_. 

"I know I said I wasn't ready," Hyukjae says, biting his lip, in fear or anticipation or embarrassment, or maybe a mixture of all three, Donghae can't really tell, "but if you want to…I will, too." 

"Hyukjae…"

"I won't mind if it's…you." 

"I want to," Donghae says, then falls silent because something's choking him and it's so beautiful, so undeserving, somehow, to see Hyukjae sitting before him offering himself in such a trusting manner. He turns off the TV and lies down flat on the bed. Hyukjae takes his cue, lies down beside him and they're trembling a little, almost afraid at what's going to happen, and then Donghae thinks of all they've been through to arrive at this stage and he says, "I'll never love anybody like I love you." 

"I know," Hyukjae says with a hint of tease in his voice, turning over on his side. Donghae turns too, to meet him, and they're so close their noses are brushing and Donghae smiles, feathers his fingers on Hyukjae's shoulder, _come get me._

It's Hyukjae who kisses him first, mouth sweet on his, tongue poking out to press teasingly against his bottom lip. The entire right side of Donghae's body is beginning to scream so he rolls over on his back, raises his knees slightly to centre Hyukjae on top of him. Hyukjae doesn't appear to notice their change in position; his eyes are closed and his hands are cradling Donghae's head and he's breathing soft and low against Donghae's lips, breathing once, twice before kissing him again, tasting so much of mouthwash and toothpaste that it makes Donghae want to giggle. 

And then Hyukjae ghosts his lips over his chin and down the line of his neck and Donghae doesn't want to giggle anymore, forgets the urge completely when he feels Hyukjae's lips tease the corner of his neck and shoulder. He feels the cold pressure of Hyukjae's tongue on his skin, a short lick and then a longer one and then Hyukjae is licking a strip from the hollow of his throat to his collarbone and Donghae is gasping, he can't remember the last time he was this aroused. 

"Hyukjae," he tries to say, but it comes out sounding more like a low moan instead and he works his hands down the side of Hyukjae's body, under his shirt over warm flushed skin until his fingertips are brushing over the shape of Hyukjae's hipbones, angles under his palms, and Hyukjae shifts a little and sighs into his neck. 

"Kiss me again," Donghae whispers and Hyukjae complies, mouth on mouth and tongue on tongue over and over until they're both mindlessly hard and rocking against each other, pushing tight cloth against tight cloth and Donghae gasps into Hyukjae's mouth, clutches the nape of Hyukjae's neck and raises his head to kiss him harder. In all their caresses and almost-sex before, they've never experienced anything like this crazy needy lust that's gripping them so tightly that they're rutting against each other completely shamelessly, panting and uncoordinated until Hyukjae abruptly pushes himself back. Donghae opens his eyes, he's shaking so hard with desire that he can barely breathe. "Hyuk…"

Hyukjae's kneeling over him, arms on either side of Donghae's body holding him up, looking suddenly unsure. "I just want to – we're really doing this, aren't we?" 

"Yes," Donghae breathes. " _Yes_ , Hyuk."

He reaches out and palms Hyukjae's erection through the restrictive cloth. Hyukjae closes his eyes and groans and Donghae slips his hand under the waistbands of his pants and underwear until he comes into contact with soft pulsating skin. "Donghae," Hyukjae says, and his voice is so completely unnatural, so deep and husky and desire-laced that it makes Donghae shudder, releases the final grip he has on thinking straight. "I want you inside me, Hyukjae." 

He feels the shiver that runs, quickly, through Hyukjae's body. "How do I not hurt you?" he asks. 

"We'll do it slowly," Donghae says, trying to breathe calmly, "it'll be okay as long as we go slow."

Hyukjae stares anxiously at him and Donghae can't take it anymore. He releases Hyukjae's cock and pulls his shirt over his head, throwing it haphazardly anywhere and grabbing Hyukjae's hand, dragging it over his bare chest and stomach, all the way down to his hips and over his own erection. "We'll do this together," he says, and he sees Hyukjae's anxiety crumble. 

They're fully naked within seconds, cold air teasing their skin as Hyukjae reaches for the lube by the pillow and uncaps it. He squeezes out a generous quantity over his fingers and Donghae holds his breath watching as he slicks the liquid over his cock, hand sliding slowly over skin and balls, eyes closed pink lips parted head pulled back line of throat long and inviting and Adam's apple bobbing until Donghae's hips jerk instinctively, thrusting into air. Hyukjae opens his eyes in surprise, looks at Donghae flushed and panting below him. 

"You," Donghae gasps with a breathless laugh, "you have _no_ idea how much you're screwing with my mind." 

"Or maybe I do," Hyukjae says with a hint of a smirk, and Donghae barely has time to process his words before he feels a slick fingertip edging into him. He cries out, gripping the pillow until his knuckles turn white; it feels so completely alien, so invasive that his reflexive action is to bend over and pull that finger out of himself, but he grips the pillow harder and breathes, reminds himself that this is Hyukjae, this is only the beginning, this is what they both want. He forces himself to relax shuddering muscles and nod at Hyukjae to slide his finger in further because Hyukjae looks ready to quit. 

"Do it," he says. 

"If it hurts, I'll stop, I really will," Hyukjae says, which is really very nice of him because Donghae has learned before just how difficult it is to stop when you're rock-hard and mindless with lust. 

"I'm okay," he says, "don't stop." 

Hyukjae pushes in a little further and Donghae braces himself, tries not to cry out in pain when Hyukjae tries inserting a second finger. But he can't stop his entire body from tensing and Hyukjae stops immediately, bends over him to nip kisses along his chest. 

"More lube," Donghae breathes, reaching down to stroke Hyukjae's cheek with his thumb. 

He's sure that they're creating a mess down there when the friction gets easier and Hyukjae is crooking his fingers and exploring and probing and _fuck_ suddenly there's a burst of feeling inside him so strong and intense that he screams and he's not sure if he's still seeing anymore or if he's lying still or if his entire body is in spasms at the pleasure that had hit him out of nowhere and when he comes back to earth Hyukjae is wide-eyed, open-mouthed, silent in awe. He moves his fingers and Donghae throws his head back against the pillow, pushes back against Hyukjae's fingers only now he wants it deeper, he wants it harder and he manages to articulate, "Ready, I'm ready" and then Hyukjae withdraws and he has never felt so needy before. 

"Please, Hyuk," he says, he might be begging now, "please, hurry up, I need you so much, _please_." 

Hyukjae is doing something down there and Donghae opens his eyes impatiently, sees Hyukjae slicking more lube over his cock before he finally positions himself and tries to push in. There's a thick hot pressure, thicker than Donghae had anticipated, and then Hyukjae slips out and curses, and Donghae curses with him, round and rough because goddamn it he wants this so badly now, he actually thinks he might expire of need if Hyukjae doesn't work it out within the next ten seconds. He spreads his legs wider and wider and lifts his lower body up to give Hyukjae a better aim, and Hyukjae holds on to his hip, locks eyes with him, and they take a breath of courage and he's staring into Hyukjae's eyes when he enters him again, so solid and thick that Donghae has to fight to breathe, to gasp, to moan at the complete shock and ecstasy on Hyukjae's face, god _so hot so hot so hot_. Hyukjae grunts and he's sliding in more and more, so deep that Donghae loses the feeling of being himself, he's not sure anymore now if they're really two separate people, and then Hyukjae stops and they're moaning softly against each other, trembling, and Hyukjae says, "Are you okay?" 

"I'm more than okay, I'm…" Donghae shifts around a little to make himself more comfortable. "This feels…it feels _fucking_ good, Hyuk."

Hyukjae nods, all the muscles along his arms straining, and Donghae realises that he's controlling himself from thrusting. He wraps his arms around Hyukjae's waist and smiles and they're holding on to each other at the first thrust, and then the second, and the third, and Donghae says "I'm okay" again to the question in Hyukjae's eyes, adds wordlessly _do what you want with me_. It's sloppy at first, weird, not exactly sexy, but suddenly they slip into a rhythm and it's the most mind-blowing thing that Donghae has ever experienced, this moving in sync, this sensation of Hyukjae penetrating him to the hilt. He's beyond shame now, not that he has ever felt shame with Hyukjae in the first place; he's bending himself almost double, lifting his legs over Hyukjae's shoulders, telling him to go faster don't worry about me I'm fine, oh god Hyukjae, it feels so good, because he's on such a high now, he's so aroused that it's not biologically possible that anything is going to hurt him at this point. It seems insane now, absolutely ridiculous that they could ever have felt afraid of sex, ever have been apprehensive, when what they're doing now feels so right that they can't even contemplate it being marginally wrong. They've always belonged to each other, they've always been meant to do this, they were built to be buried in each other's bodies; filled and filled over, one person one person, you and me, Hyukjae, I love you. 

Hyukjae is resting on his knees now, hands tight on Donghae's hips and head thrown back, panting, a film of perspiration covering his neck and chest. Donghae wonders if everyone's first time is this rhythmic, this fluid, because he can't imagine how this could get any better; he can't think of how anything else in the world is going to top this. He's so suffused with the pleasure that their bodies are giving him that he can't think, he can only watch, he knows that he's moaning really loudly because his throat is beginning to feel sore but really he's feeling and feeling and feeling and then Hyukjae's hand wraps around his neglected erection, slicks the pre-come over his length as he squeezes, and Donghae gasps, he can't hold out anymore. He bucks and shudders and screams and then he's coming, back curved head whipped to the side as his scream melts into a soundless cry, _Hyukjae_ , covering his stomach with strings and strings of hot sticky semen. 

He's barely out of his haze when Hyukjae cries out his name and there's so much raw emotion in his voice that if it had been possible for him to climax again he would have. He trembles as Hyukjae comes into him, liquid heat flooding his insides and rolling down the insides of his thighs and over his ass and he holds Hyukjae to him, kisses his hair as Hyukjae continues thrusting through his orgasm, mouth open and wet against Donghae's shoulder. 

They're both wrung beyond all additional movement when it's over and Donghae vaguely registers at the back of his mind that he's probably really gross and sticky right now, but he can't be bothered. Hyukjae is still lying limp against him, half-hard and twitching inside him, and he's okay if they stay like this for a few more moments. They can't think of anything to say. They continue holding each other and shaking, smiling, kissing throats and cheeks and necks and collarbones, until Hyukjae sighs and pulls out, flopping down beside him. 

"I forgot the condoms," he says. 

"We'll remember them next time," Donghae says. 

They're quiet until Donghae announces that he needs a bath and Hyukjae says he might as well have one too, he's so covered with sweat that he's beginning to repulse himself. They steam up the mirror because they want the water to be excessively hot and Hyukjae laughs at the marks of Donghae's fingers on his back, remarks that he's been tattooed. Donghae says damn right, you're going to be mine for a long time yet. 

When they get back to bed they're tired and sleepy but it's nicer to lie awake beside each other, talking when they feel like it, staying quiet when they don't, and they finish up the cold breakfast that Donghae's mum had prepared for them. 

At the first signs of light they pack up and get into the car, looking at the sunrise as they head back to Seoul.


	5. part four; a togetherness

****

**part four; a togetherness**

"Where do we go now?" Hyukjae asks.

"Anywhere," Donghae says. 

He's slumped down in the passenger seat, watching the orange-lit road through the windscreen. The bright headlines of the cars zooming past them on the opposite side of the road. The blinking of a red signal light in front of them. Hyukjae follows the car into an exit off the highway. The GPS complains, re-routes, and re-routes yet again until Donghae tires of it and turns it off. 

"Where are we going?" he asks.

"Anywhere," Hyukjae says. 

They end up in the corner of a parking lot in the financial district, quiet and dark, long after hours. There are a few guys standing around the light of a nearby 24-hour convenience store, clutching cigarettes and flicking ash onto the ground. The tendrils of their cigarette smoke curl into the air and dissipate, and Donghae wants to know what they're doing there; why can't they go home? The digital clock changes from 10:36 to 10:37 when he reaches out to lower the volume on the radio. 

He does it so that he can hear Hyukjae's breathing. So that he can feel, more acutely, Hyukjae's hand on his knee, making its way up his inner thigh. It's strange how silence adds weight to everything. 

He's almost hard when they kiss first, tongues colliding in Hyukjae's mouth. Hyukjae's hands are tight on his shoulders, lips wet and red in the dimness of the street light when they pull away for breath. He feels the vibration of Hyukjae's throat when he mouths his Adam's apple, licks the length of his collarbone. He wants to tear the shirt off him, slide his arms fully around Hyukjae's waist, wrap his legs around him and – 

"Donghae," Hyukjae says, only it comes out more like a whisper, a little needy moan. And it is testament to how much of an effect Hyukjae has on him that it makes Donghae tremble, fingers winding into a grip on Hyukjae's jeans. It has been too long, he thinks. Way – too – fucking – long.

"Hyukjae," he murmurs, breath stuttering a little, "I _need_ …"

Hyukjae's hand is almost, almost on his crotch when the guys near the convenience store suddenly start walking in their direction and Hyukjae freezes, and Donghae can't restrain the curse that slips out of his throat. " _Hyukjae_ ," he says, impatient, perhaps a touch whiny; "they aren't going to look at us. They don't even know that we're here." 

"Won't hurt us to wait until they're gone," Hyukjae says, watching the guys mucking around before finally getting into their car and heading out of the parking lot. 

Donghae lets out his breath, slowly. "Can we continue now?"

Hyukjae looks back at him, slightly sheepish. "Sorry." 

He's still distracted, so Donghae takes over instead, foregoing slow and teasing in case someone else should decide to come into the parking lot and scare Hyukjae off any sort of remote intimacy. He unzips Hyukjae's pants, reaches into his underwear and pulls out his cock before Hyukjae even fully processes what's happening. "Donghae," he squeaks, one hand on Donghae's and the other gripping the wheel, "is this a good idea." 

"What do you want to do then?" Donghae demands, dragging his thumb from base to tip. "Go back home?" 

"Um," Hyukjae says, watching as he hardens in Donghae's hand. "No." 

"Then I suppose you'll just have to put up with this," Donghae says, and wraps his mouth around the head before Hyukjae can think of anymore protests. 

Hyukjae makes a sort of gargled sound at the back of his throat, but Donghae's paying more attention to the way tension eases out of his thighs as he hollows his cheeks around Hyukjae's cock, sucking him deep and slow, running his tongue over the raised veins. Just a few more seconds, he thinks, and he's right when Hyukjae's hand touches his cheek, running his thumb in a gentle, soothing circle before tangling in his hair. "I'm sorry," Hyukjae says again, tugging at his hair a little, and Donghae makes an _it's okay_ sound in his throat, grins when Hyukjae's legs quiver at the vibration. 

He reaches down with a blind hand and gropes around his jeans button before raising himself awkwardly to tug at his zipper and pull his own cock out without releasing Hyukjae's. He's so hard that he thinks he might explode then and there, and he's certain of it when Hyukjae groans, " _Me_ ", and stretches over to wrap his own hand around him. 

Donghae moans around his cock and starts sucking harder, faster, because he knows that it's only going to be a short while before they cramp up completely in their awkward positions and this whole encounter becomes less sexy and more painful. Hyukjae's bracing himself against the floor of the car and humping infinitesimally into his mouth, breathing becoming loud and laboured, and Donghae grips Hyukjae's knee, almost whispering love songs against his skin as Hyukjae strokes his balls quickly before curling his hand around Donghae's erection again and jerking him off, quick and furious, hand warm and slick from pre-come. 

"Donghae," Hyukjae gasps, once, and his grip on Donghae's cock tightens before his legs quiver again and he comes into Donghae's mouth like he's never going to stop, hips and breath jerking erratically. Donghae keeps his breath steady, in out as he swallows Hyukjae's come slowly, savouring it, wishing they were naked so that Hyukjae could paint him with it, with this deep desire between them. 

Hyukjae's hand has slackened, so he pulls back and wraps his own hand around his, guiding Hyukjae through it until he hits orgasm and spills into both their hands. When he opens his eyes, still trembling, Hyukjae is leaning against the car seat, smiling lazily at him, eyes half-lidded. 

"One day," Donghae says, pressing his thumb into Hyukjae's mouth and watching him suck, "we'll find a proper place where we can actually have sex." 

"Mmm," says Hyukjae, and leans on him for a moment, and all Donghae wants to do is to put his arms around him and hold him close and never fucking let him go. 

They make it back to the dorm just in time to see Kyuhyun battling Sungmin down on the nth level of whatever new video game he's into. Sungmin calls out, "Hyukkie, come help me before he kills me", and they share a look, holding back from reaching out to touch, before going their separate ways. 

… …

After five years of living in Seoul, Donghae would consider himself pretty well-versed in its non-beaten paths. He has his pet restaurants (everybody recommends Myoungdong Kyoja, but he personally thinks that Bongchu Chimak is way better), his pet hang-outs (the small, nondescript café across the street where he's on friendly terms with all the serving staff), his pet bars (which are uncannily similar to Heechul's favourite bars, since Heechul is his most regular drinking partner). He knows where to get the best bibimbap, kimbap, jajangmyeon, he doesn't need to use a GPS when he drives, and if any tourist stops him to ask for directions (there are many of them – particularly females – Youngwoon says it's his inviting big eyes), he knows enough to draw them fairly accurate, if childish-looking, maps. 

And yet, these days he's getting the feeling that he doesn't know Seoul well enough. At least, not well enough to know where all the hidden, inconspicuous gay pubs are where he can get drunk and make out with Hyukjae without any nosy tabloid journalists or homophobic guys coming in and having a field day by spotting them. Not well enough to know where he can hold Hyukjae's hand on the dinner table without the whole restaurant giving him weirded out looks. Not well enough to know where to go on those long, aimless drives down highways with them tapping on the GPS, trying out this bar and that bar and then systematically rejecting every single one for being too crowded, too well-lit, too noisy, or too full of clearly heterosexual couples, until they get tired of the fruitlessness and end up in some parking lot making out surreptitiously under the cover of darkness. 

Three weeks after their last parking lot venture, Donghae's bare minutes away from clawing at walls. Hyukjae's increasing popularity in variety shows means that he's away most days from early afternoon till early morning, and Donghae finds himself being shuttled to several meetings about a sub-group aimed at the Chinese market, one that includes half of Super Junior but _no Hyukjae_. 

"Are they going to make me stay in China?" he asks Jungsu one night, when he's feeling particularly frustrated over his lack of say in the company's plans for him. 

"They might," Jungsu says. "You guys will be targeting the Chinese market, after all, and you can't really do that from Korea, can you?" 

"Why aren't they including Hyukjae?" 

Jungsu looks up from his notebook, frowns thoughtfully at him. "They've got plans for him here," he says, in a tone that clearly implies there is to be no more discussion on this topic. Donghae looks at him and thinks of something he'd learned long ago, that ostriches avoid danger by sticking their heads into the ground. He wants to pull Jungsu out by his hind legs, yell at him that you can't pretend something doesn't exist simply by choosing not to see it; it's _juvenile_ , it's about the _stupidest_ thing you could ever do, but he turns away. 

He calls Junsu instead. "I'm going nuts," he says the moment Junsu picks up the phone. 

"Hello to you too," Junsu says. "I'm beginning to think that you call me only when you're being driven insane by lust." 

"Give me some credit," Donghae says. "It's not _just_ that. You're the only one who knows about Hyukjae and me aside from Jungsu hyung and he's being a total jerk about it so I can't talk to him." 

"What's happened now?" 

"I'm going to _China_ ," Donghae says, and hears, with some surprise, the despair in his voice. "They've decided it. We're going to _live_ there." 

"How long?"

"About two months." 

"Hey, that isn't so bad," Junsu says. "It's just two months, and you'll be so busy that you won't even notice it." 

"No," Donghae says. "It's weird, but when we were just friends, two months seemed really long…and now that we're, I don't know, _more_ , it just seems harder. Even two days is hard." 

"Well," Junsu says. "Maybe two months will be easier because you'll get used to being apart." 

"Maybe," Donghae says, unconvinced. "The thing is, we can't even be together _here_ , because there isn't anywhere we can go. There's always someone hanging around in the dorm so we aren't ever alone, and if we go out there isn't anywhere we can hold hands or anything. It's like we're already apart every day, and I can tell you I'm not getting used to it." 

"That does sound tough," Junsu says. "I guess I hadn't thought of the whole privacy thing when you guys told me about your relationship. Not going to tell the rest of the group?"

"I think we should, but Hyukjae doesn't want to – at least not yet…" 

"What, he thinks they might castrate you or something?"

"Probably." 

"He's a paranoid little ass sometimes," Junsu says, almost fondly. "Not that you can really blame him, you know. His parents would die if they ever heard of…"

"I know," Donghae snaps, a little rougher than he'd intended. "I know everything that you're about to warn me of. I don't need you to remind me." 

"Hey, buddy," Junsu snaps back, not really angry, but a little offended nevertheless. "You're the one who called me." 

Donghae groans. He might, he think, just might, be going mad. Or his head might be turning into wool, judging from the way he's losing his ability to think clearly. "Sorry. I'm just…sick of trying to find somewhere to hide and finding _nowhere_. If there was somewhere we could go – but there isn't, and I have to pretend that we're just friends because there's always someone with us and if I touch him anywhere but, you know, people give us weird looks…and if we avoid each other, the others start asking if we've quarrelled but I _can't_ just touch him without wanting to…it's just stupid. Okay, I'm not making a lot of sense." 

"No, you are," Junsu says. "Give me a moment. I think I can work something out for you guys." 

He goes away from the phone and Donghae waits, studying the distortion of the buildings through the big raindrops on the window. He hates rain. It reminds him too much of drizzly mornings and grey skies and dirt-lined buildings and Hyukjae huddling in the wind, his tears mixing up in the rain, in his voice, in the fear on his face. 

The funny thing is, he's always wanted to make Hyukjae smile. 

"Back," says Junsu. "Has Hyukjae spoken to you about this?" 

"He says we should try going to a hotel, but that's crazy. We can't exactly reserve a hotel room and march in there to check in with our passports. The media will find out in a minute. And anyway…" Donghae sighs. "We've been so busy lately with the Explorers show that we don't have any time to look around for a low-profile hotel. We can't go somewhere like the Marriott, you know." 

"No," Junsu agrees. "But I _do_ have something for you. My cousin Joowon has a wife who owns a boutique hotel in Seokyo-dong. Nice and quiet, not exactly a place for paparazzi. They mostly get foreign families and young couples who go out early and come back late. She won't mind putting aside a double room for you and Hyukjae to use, and you can come in through the back door instead of strutting through the lobby." 

"Oh," says Donghae, and isn't quite sure how to continue because suddenly, a huge rush of gratitude is squeezing his throat. 

"It's not free," Junsu says warningly. "She's nice, but not _that_ nice. You'll have to pay for the room, though I don't know how she'll charge you – maybe you can pay her per night or something. But she'll handle it personally so your name isn't in the hotel guest records, and nobody will find out." 

"Thank you."

"No problem," Junsu says. "Just buy me a Harley or something." 

"I'll have to get a loan from Siwon." 

Junsu laughs. "Anyway, I'll text you her number and you can get in touch with her yourself. She knows about it. I wish you happy times." 

… …

Five hours later, he's on the highway with Hyukjae again, except this time they're travelling without the aid of a GPS. The downpour earlier that day had left the night sky clear and Donghae's sure that he has never seen so many stars before. Or perhaps he's imagining them, because they seem bigger than stars normally are. 

"Are you sure this is…" Hyukjae begins nervously. He's messing around with the glove compartment, arranging and rearranging the lube and condoms that he'd ran out to a hole-in-the-wall convenience store to get earlier on. 

"Yes," says Donghae. 

"If anything happens…"

"At least we'd know that we tried." 

Hyukjae doesn't say anything, and at the first red light off the highway, Donghae turns to look at him. All he can see, really, is the outline of Hyukjae's side profile, and he reaches out to tap his thumb affectionately against his chin. "You don't have to pretend to be all disapproving, I know you're trying to hide your smile." 

"Ass," says Hyukjae, but he does smile, wide enough to crinkle his eyes. 

"Ass yourself!" Donghae retorts originally. 

It's twenty minutes later, when they're safely in the cream-coloured room with the locked door and drawn curtains, when Donghae is pressing him down onto the bed that smells so generic, so anonymous, that it can't possibly yield up any of their secrets, that he finally says, "You do know that I'm happy to be here like this with you…?"

"I know," Donghae says, kissing the line of his throat, the little dip between his collarbones, the warmth just beneath his shirt. He wants to strip him – or no, _strip_ is an inappropriate word, because it sounds way too crude, too vulgar for what he wants to do to Hyukjae. He wants to undress him, lay him out bare and touch him all over, mark him with so much love and tenderness that Hyukjae will feel it like a silken cloak even during, or _especially_ during, all those maddening times in the outside world when they can't be together. 

"I don't want anyone to hurt you," Donghae says, his words coming out in such a rush that his consonants melt into his vowels. "I don't ever, ever want anyone to make you cry, I don't want you to ever feel alone, Hyukjae, I want to be – I want to be beside you always and, and, I want you to be happy, no matter what happens. I want to give you everything." 

Hyukjae raises his legs, crooks them at the knees and holds Donghae between them. He looks, in that moment, so trustful, that it makes Donghae catch his breath; he'll never get used to this, never, to the sensation of seeing Hyukjae laying himself open for him, _him_ , Lee Donghae, who has so little to offer. 

"Let's do this together," Hyukjae says, smiling, and Donghae really, really, forgets to breathe. 

… …

It's nearing three-thirty when they finally flop limply on the bed, too exhausted even to think. Donghae pulls off the condom, disposes of it neatly in the trash can and notices that Hyukjae's still smiling. He leans over and traces the shape of Hyukjae's mouth with his index finger, trying to figure out all the reasons why he loves his mouth but capable only of focusing on the feel of it beneath his finger, the softness, the fullness, the way it fits against his own lips. 

"I love you," he whispers. "Do you know that? I love you so much sometimes I don't even know what to do with myself." 

Hyukjae raises his hand and rests it gently on his cheek. It looks like he wants to say something, but he smiles instead, and Donghae kisses him again, unable to keep away; kisses his beautiful mouth and his nose and the space of skin between his eyebrows. When they withdraw to look at each other, Hyukjae's expression is soft, almost bemused, and he holds Donghae's gaze even when his eyelids start fluttering, fighting valiantly to keep open. Donghae chuckles and holds his hand over his eyes. "Go to sleep, Hyukkie." 

Hyukjae does. Donghae closes his eyes too, but although his entire body is relaxed, sated, luxuriating in the feel of Hyukjae's leg between his, he can't drop into sleep quite yet. He lies half-awake instead, dozing lightly, listening to the silence around them. If intimacy – happiness – has a sound, this would be it. This; Hyukjae's steady breathing; the occasional hum of a car engine down the street next to them; Hyukjae's breathing turning into tiny snores. Footsteps outside; a room door clicking shut. He turns Hyukjae onto his side, and Hyukjae stops snoring.

If happiness has a physical touch, this would be it. Hyukjae's heartbeat beneath his palm, slow and steady, more wondrous than anything Donghae can conceive of. The warmth of his flushed skin. The perspiration drying on his forehead. The smoothness of his hip. The faint lines of half-defined muscles on his stomach. The grainy roughness of his throat, the curve of his neck. Donghae rests his head against that curve, breathes slowly as the minutes tick languorously by, as though they have world enough and time. 

In days after, in years, he will try to piece together the moments of that night, recreate the sensations. But memory has a strange way of keeping certain details and throwing others away, and so he'll remember the touch of Hyukjae's lips but not of his cheek, the click of the door closing but not of the car humming down the road. The one thing he will remember, clearly, through the years of blurring and whitewashing, is the remembrance that if happiness could be a tangible something that you could touch, listen to, sleep and breathe against – that had been it. 

… …

They begin to find ways previously deemed impossible of scrounging out an hour here, two hours there, from their ridiculously packed schedules to fly down the highway to Seokyo Guesthouse and claim Room 316 as theirs; always Room 316, with its anonymous double bed and two soft pillows that sink beneath their necks. 

Sometimes they don't have sex. Hyukjae is too drained from his exploits on variety shows to want to do anything but lie with his head on Donghae's lap; Donghae is too exhausted from juggling the recording of Explorers and learning enough Mandarin to rap in it to want to do anything but curl his fingers in Hyukjae's hair. Sometimes they talk, and Hyukjae makes Donghae laugh; sometimes they shower together, and Donghae bites a bruise into Hyukjae's shoulder. Days seem crowded into those stolen hours; all hours spent outside Room 316 begin to feel strange, unreal, somehow dissatisfying. Donghae doesn't want to admit it, but there are times, now, when he feels frightened of this consuming passion, that Hyukjae won't be able to keep up, or that such intense happiness never can last in this vicious, topsy turvy world. 

Then Hyukjae says something along the lines of, "too much thinking makes you completely unsexy", and Donghae pushes him and maybe smacks him, for good measure. And he thinks, there's so much of life ahead for us. And he thinks, these will be the days that we'll look back to when we're old and remember that we were young, and beautiful, and we dared to pursue happiness and catch whatever we could of it in our palms. 

… …

"Donghae," says Heechul one evening, appearing in his bedroom with Heebum on his shoulder. "I'm going to close the door." 

Donghae mmm's and receives, quite happily, a lapful of cat. It has been less than half an hour since Hyukjae, headed to SBS for Star King, drove him back home after a slow, leisurely three hours at Room 316 where they'd held off their orgasms until they almost blacked out with it. Hyukjae had kissed his wrists and told him that he loved him. Donghae isn't sure if it is biologically possible, but he's still tingling. 

Heechul effectively rids him of all tingles in the next moment when he kicks Donghae out of post-coital glow straight into serious, I-mean-business confrontation. "Are you out of your goddamn _mind_ ," Heechul yells, and pauses to take a breath. "You and Hyukjae, are you both absolutely fucking _insane_."

"What are you talking about, hyung?"

"Don't even try to act innocent with me. You've been sneaking off every day to some hideout to do whatever it is that you do, don't tell me about it, I don't want to know, but are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what the paparazzi would do to you if they found out?" 

If a truck could be bashed through one's consciousness, Donghae's sure that he's just had a dozen trucks run over his. "How do you know?"

"Do you think I'm stupid? The two of you disappear for unexplained, unaccounted for hours every day and you return looking stupidly happy and everyone wonders where you've been. If you thought that you could actually do this without _someone_ noticing, or maybe you did really think that we would just _not notice_ that you go missing every single fucking day or that we'll think you're out for coffee, I'm here to enlighten you to just how wrong you are."

Heebum jumps angrily off Donghae's lap when Heechul kicks the bed again just to drive home his point a little more strongly, and Donghae stands up, simply because he feels vulnerable sitting down when someone's screaming at him. "Hyung, it's not as though we're harming anybody. I know you don't like me being with Hyukjae, but we're together, and that's that. We love each other, and there's nothing you can do that will change that. We've found a place that nobody knows about, and it's not likely that the paparazzi will ever find us there, so if everyone will just keep quiet about it it'll be _fine_ , we'll keep out of your faces and you won't ever have to know…"

"You're not getting it, are you?" Heechul says, softer now, but still pacing up and down the length of the room, "Sure, I don't want you together, but you are, and there isn't a thing I can do about it so it's _your_ business and I don't have any right to interfere. You can be with Hyukjae for as long as you fucking want, you get it? What I'm yelling at you about right now, in summary, is that I don't care that you've found a place where you can do whatever you like without worrying that Sungmin or Kibum is going to drop by and give you a nice little shock, but I do care when you go so often that everyone starts wondering where you are! For fuck's sake, Donghae, have some fucking control over yourself. You can't keep this up forever without someone finding out and then where will you be? Definitely not on stage with the rest of us, you get me?" 

Donghae sits down suddenly. "Basically, you want us to go there less often." 

" _Yes_ ," says Heechul. "Don't play around with fire, Donghae. You won't know how to deal with it when it blows up in your face." 

Donghae looks at his toes and says nothing, and Heechul stops in front of him. "Think about it," he orders. "If you want to continue on with Hyukjae, this is something you're going to have to think about."

"Don't…," says Donghae. "I get it." 

Heechul bends over and gives him a quick, smothering hug. "Control," he emphasises, and whirls out of the room as suddenly as he'd come in. 

Donghae gets up, takes a shower, watches some TV with Shindong. Siwon drops by with dumplings from their favourite Chinese restaurant and they gather round the living room, letting soup drip out of the dumplings and teasing Ryeowook about his terrible chopstick skills, and Donghae feels great. He feels fine. This is Super Junior, this is his family, this is his home. Ryeowook says, I wish we could live like this _forever_ , I can't imagine not living with you guys, and Shindong says, I've just gotten to know this girl in my former high school and I think I might be a little in love with her. Siwon just about _dies_ over that, because Siwon is a huge sap and loves to hear everyone's romance stories.

It's eleven o' clock when he goes to bed, curling up against his pillow. At eleven-thirty, he's kneeling over the toilet bowl, puking water and remnants of dumpling into Seoul's sewage system. He rests his head against the cold white ceramic when he's done, swallows the sickening taste of bile at the back of his throat, and wants Hyukjae and wants his mum and wants to be anywhere but here. 

… …

They're six hours into the filming of the seventh episode of Explorers when Hyukjae, stupid on his feet from too many hours of sleep deprivation, slips while stretching himself across dividing platforms and falls awkwardly into layers of Styrofoam balls. He's up in half a minute, fingers scrabbling on the sides of the platform as he attempts to pull himself up, but the look on his face sends Jungsu, Youngwoon, and about three staff members flying towards him. 

Donghae only unfreezes himself when Hyukjae's sitting on the floor with his foot in the hands of their medical staff member, someone they always have on hand in case of any accidents and someone they always hope never to call to duty. Hyukjae's biting his bottom lip so hard that he's bleeding, and Sungmin kneels down beside him, murmuring comforting words as he thumbs the blood away. 

And then, before he even realises it, jealousy hits Donghae like a hurricane, so hard that he's shocked at it, had never imagined that he could be capable of feeling like this. "Get away from him," he says to Sungmin.

"Why?" Sungmin looks confused. "His lip is bleeding." 

"Just _go_ ," Donghae says, his voice low.

"Donghae," Hyukjae says, his voice shaded with anger, but Sungmin goes anyway with a little suspicious wrinkle between his eyebrows. Donghae kneels down beside Hyukjae, takes his hand and cradles it in both of his. "How did you even fall?" he asks, ignoring the very narrowed-eye looks that Kibum, squatting by Hyukjae's knees, is giving him. 

"I don't know," Hyukjae says, wincing as the staff member touches his rapidly swelling ankle. "I just suddenly felt dizzy." 

"You scared the shit out of me." 

"I know, I'm sorry." Hyukjae won't meet his eyes, and Donghae's suddenly aware of the many eyes directed towards his back. He contemplates letting go of Hyukjae's hand, but he can't quite do it yet, not when Hyukjae is beginning to perspire with pain. Still, Hyukjae pulls away when the staff member announces that he needs to get his ankle bandaged off the set, and Donghae's left staring as Hyukjae hobbles away without a look back. 

The filming finally recommences ten minutes later with Hyukjae's ankle bound so tightly that he says his cells are suffocating. Youngwoon says that's funny, serves you right for being a clumsy ass anyway, and Hyukjae says, it's not fair to pick on someone who's injured. Everyone ignores that Hyukjae and Donghae are standing several conspicuous feet away from each other, and Siwon is the only one who looks in their direction, puzzled, when Donghae goes up to him during a break and says softly, "Are you mad at me?" 

Hyukjae rubs his face in the way he always does after a variety; easing out the strain in his cheek muscles, or so he says. "Donghae…" his voice comes out like a sigh. "Let's not do this now; I really don't want to." 

"But _what_?" Donghae persists. "What did I do wrong?" 

" _Nothing_. God, Donghae, just…we'll deal with this later, okay? Siwon's looking at us, damn it." 

"So let him look." 

"No. Go away. Please." 

"Wait a minute, you let Sungmin hyung touch you in that way, and now you're angry at _me_ for not liking it?"

"Fuck, Donghae!" Hyukjae snaps. "Just go away!" 

So Donghae does, and he doesn't say anything even when Hyukjae's face is so grey with pain by the time they wrap it up two and a half hours later that Seunghwan bundles him into a cab and sends him back to the dorm ahead of the rest.

"What were you thinking?" Jungsu asks unhappily when he and Donghae are standing by the exit to the parking lot, waiting for everyone else to gather. "You were all over him; you can't expect the rest to not notice when you're making it so obvious, you know." 

"Maybe I want them to notice," Donghae says. "They've been kept in the dark for too long." 

"Don't be so naïve, Donghae!" Jungsu hisses. "This isn't just about you or Hyukjae. If the company finds out, you're not the only one who's going to face shit. Seunghwan hyung and Kibum hyung are going to get it big time too. Stop thinking about yourself for a millisecond and let the thought of _others_ filter through your selfishness. _Please_." 

Donghae looks away from Jungsu's face to the gloomily lit parking lot. He feels nauseated, as though he's been drinking too much on an empty stomach. Maybe it's over-tiredness from a full day's worth of schedule. Maybe if they put him on dividing platforms now, he'd fall too. "I get it," he says flatly. 

"Donghae-yah," Jungsu says, kinder now, "I know how much you want to be close when you're starting out. It's not my business to get into what you two do together, but it does become my concern when…" 

He cuts himself off abruptly when Sungmin, Siwon and Kibum come up, all yawning with beanies pulled low over their foreheads. Siwon is the only one who bothers covering his mouth. 

"What's wrong, hyung?" Kibum asks, putting his arm around Donghae's shoulders. "You look pretty upset." 

"I'm tired," Donghae says, pushing Kibum's arm away. Kibum chews his bottom lip and Donghae feels bad, knows it's an awful thing to pull away so blatantly from Kibum's attempt at comfort, but he's quite sure that he'll scream if anyone touches him now. He huddles into himself when they pile into the van, pulls his hat over his face and plugs his ears with music (when he gets back to the dorm, he doesn't remember a single song that had played) and he doesn't want to see the inquiring, baffled looks that he knows the rest are exchanging in the thick blanket of his unnatural silence. 

Hyukjae is asleep when they arrive and Donghae doesn't go into the big bedroom to check on him. Sungmin's sitting on the edge of his bed massaging his feet with his night-time moisturising lotion and talking about something, but his words don't make sense, they're just sounds, vibrations in the air. Donghae grunts a couple of times in response and Sungmin gives up on making conversation when he pulls the blanket over himself, turns away to face the wall. 

He wants to break something then, to throw one of his rare but famous tantrums, to scream at someone about how unfair the world is and how he can't stand another minute of Hyukjae's paranoia and Jungsu's superiority and Heechul yelling at him about control, but he lies still instead and he doesn't quite know how he gets there but he's in Room 316 again, and the late night Japanese restaurant on the opposite side of the road is turning off its sign board. The two pillows are depressing under his weight, and Hyukjae's face is snuggled into his shoulder, his arm across his waist, breaths coming slow and regular. He's warm under the blanket, a little too warm, but the intimacy makes Donghae choke. Makes him reach out in his single bed; makes him think of all the nights that Hyukjae had laid beside him, kissing him, whispering words into his skin. He feels intoxicated by frustration, by desire, by loneliness. A fear of the loneliness. A fear that he has somehow damaged things. He falls asleep sometime that night with the jumbled mess of thoughts still working at the back of his mind. 

… …

And so it doesn't help, really, _not at all_ , when they finally get to talk one day later in Hyukjae's car and Hyukjae says, "Maybe this whole China thing is going to be good for us. We need the time apart." 

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Donghae demands. 

"You're too much, Donghae, you think that you're in love and everyone should know it, and so you don't give a damn what you do, you push Sungmin hyung away without thinking that he's been close to me for longer than _we've_ been friends, and you try to pick a fight with me while Siwon is looking, and you don't think for one moment that this is not what I want." 

He doesn't understand. He wants to shout, goddamn it, don't talk in circles. Say exactly what it is that you're so upset about. He says instead, "You done criticising me yet?"

"You just don't get it, do you?"

"No, I don't! What exactly is it that you want? You want to hide like some kind of criminal forever? You want to pretend that _we_ don't exist whenever it suits you? I'm not a toy, Hyukjae! You can't just wind me up when you want me and then chuck me in a cupboard when you don't!" 

"That's _not_ …"

"That's exactly, precisely, what you're doing!"

Hyukjae stares at him with a sort of bewilderment, and Donghae has to look away. "You think that I'm just _playing_ with you?" Hyukjae says, and the pain in his voice practically throbs, it's so palpable, "After all that we've done together, you think that I'm playing at this?"

"It's not like you're giving me any chance to think otherwise," Donghae says, because hey, he has the license to be hurt, too. 

"I'll pretend you didn't say that," Hyukjae says very quietly, "because you don't really mean it." 

"Stop patronising me." 

"I'm not." 

"I'm not a _child_ , Hyukjae. Try remembering that once in a while." 

"If that's the case, why are you throwing this tantrum at me?" 

"Because you want to live in a world where you don't have to face anyone with your true feelings and everything is going to be happy and rainbowy," Donghae says. "Because sneaking around is apparently enough for you, and you get mad at me when I can't always keep my feelings under the amount of secrecy that's acceptable to you. Because you think that I don't feel any pressure at all, you think you're the only one, you don't know that both Jungsu hyung and Heechul hyung have been at me at this and I'm _exploding_ , Hyukjae, I really am, and I will if one more fucking person comes up to me and talks to me like I'm a spoiled kid. You don't understand that I have my own dreams for this relationship, that I want to hold your hand in public and show the world that we belong together, damn it. You don't understand how long I've wanted to be with you, that I've spent half my fucking _life_ wanting and loving you, and if _you_ can be satisfied with a couple of hours here and there in a hotel room, _I_ can't." 

"But it's what we _have_ ," Hyukjae murmurs, "and if we ask for anything more, we're going to feel it far, far worse than we are now. I know Jungsu hyung and Heechul hyung have been at you – they've been at _me_ too, okay, I _know_ , but if we push this we'll lose whatever support they have for us now and it would be so bad, we wouldn't even want to be together anymore." 

"What do you want to do, then? What? What?" His voice is hoarse, and he hates how weak it sounds, but clearing his throat would be even weaker. Donghae might look and sound like a puppy sometimes, but he does have a stubbornness that could break fists. 

Hyukjae doesn't answer immediately. He gets out of the car, walks towards the nearest convenience store and Donghae's almost convinced that that was his way of making a run for it when Hyukjae returns with a mineral water bottle that he passes, silently, to him. 

"Why do you have to do this?" Donghae asks. "I'm _mad_ at you, we're _shouting_ at each other, why do you have to do this?" 

"Because if you don't want to lose your voice entirely and get murdered by Seunghwan hyung, you'd better drink the water."

"This doesn't solve anything," Donghae says, and drinks. 

They sit in silence for a while, watching cars backing in and out of the parking lots. It's strange how it seemed that they'd gotten so far; they'd found a room to themselves, a room shuttered away from the rest of the world, a room that they can use anytime, a room that they've undergone so much sharing of soul and body, and yet here they are in a parking lot yet again, wading through their differences. Hyukjae surfaces first, because he is – he is, Donghae admits, even in the flush of anger, the more reasonable one, the one who considers others all the time, the one who would buy mineral water for the person he's fighting with. 

"We'll tell them," he says. "But not everyone at once – Siwonnie will hate it, and so will Yesung hyung and possibly even Kyuhyunnie. We'll tell Sungmin hyung and Youngwoon hyung first, and if they will support us, it'll be – easier – telling everyone else." 

Donghae wraps his fingers around the mineral water bottle. "Okay." 

They're silent for a while longer, then Donghae turns to him. "Do you…Sungmin hyung…"

"No," Hyukjae says. 

"Okay," Donghae says again. 

They're not wholly at ease yet, but when Donghae puts his hand over Hyukjae's, they keep their hands linked until a little of the awkwardness goes away. Just before they get out of the car, Hyukjae kisses him, and he tastes of strawberry milk, and sweetness, and longing; and Donghae puts his hands on the back of his neck and kisses him back, wholly and hungrily. Hyukjae makes a sound at the back of this throat, a little pathetic, keening whine, and it sort of breaks Donghae's heart, because he's always wanted to make Hyukjae smile, and he's beginning to realise that he'd been overreaching himself. 

"Donghae," Hyukjae says, and he drops his forehead onto Hyukjae's shoulder, breathes him in, reminds himself that it was love, really, that brought them together. Perhaps it will keep them adrift. Perhaps it will keep them holding on when practically nobody wants them to be together, and they're shouting at each other because they don't know how to deal with it; they've never been here before and it scares them shitless. 

Let's do this together, Donghae says into Hyukjae's mouth. Into his ear. Into the skin over his chest, hopefully on a course headed straight towards his heart. 

… …

In March, Seunghwan buys Super Junior M's air tickets to Beijing. You'll be there for six weeks, he says. You'll be fine. We'll keep you so busy with promotions that you won't even have time to feel homesick.

Sungmin takes Donghae out for a celebratory meal, and Shindong and Hyukjae tag along just because it would be mean to leave them out. At the last minute, Kyuhyun insists on coming too, because he's a member of SJ-M too and it's silly to have a celebratory meal with just one SJ-M member. They go to their favourite BBQ restaurant and everyone wants samgyupsal, but Sungmin says he wants something more expensive, it's a _celebration_ after all, and orders the galbi that everyone had secretly been hankering for but had been too polite to order. 

"I don't want to go to China," Donghae says, sad and homesick already, poking his chopsticks viciously into the kimchi. 

"Stop being such a baby," Sungmin says. "It's a great opportunity. You're going to be huge in China, and you're going to see so many different places and meet so many people. You don't know how much I want to be in your place." 

"You don't know how much I want to be in yours," Donghae says, and doesn't add, to continue being in the room next to Hyukjae, to lie on his drool-soaked pillow in the mornings and sit with him on rooftops and never know what it's like to have to live without him. 

"At least there'll be Korean food in Beijing," Shindong says. 

"I'm glad as long as it means I don't have to be waken up by Teukie hyung coming in at three a.m. and bumping into my bed," Kyuhyun says.

They're halfway through the meal and down to the fourth bottle of soju when Donghae looks at Sungmin turning the galbi pieces over with a little concentrated wrinkle between his eyebrows. And he remembers Sungmin at fifteen with his arm around Hyukjae, Sungmin walking down a snowy street with them after DBSK's debut, Sungmin lying on a field with his head tucked into Hyukjae's shoulder. Many of his adolescent memories are blurred, and sometimes he can't remember what they'd been doing or where they'd been, but in all of those blurred memories, Sungmin had been right there beside them. "Hyung," he says. 

"Yeah?" Sungmin's fiddling with his chopsticks now, balancing rice and pork belly, and Donghae suddenly reaches out and grabs his wrist, sending rice scattering all over the table. Sungmin jumps in surprise. 

"Listen," he says.

"Donghae?" Hyukjae touches his leg under the table. 

"I'm with Hyukjae," Donghae says, and he's surprised at the lack of tremor in his voice. "We're together. As a real couple, I mean. We're in love. We've been in love for a while now. I just want to let you know." 

"Wha…" Shindong begins, and Kyuhyun doesn't say anything, but the next time they look at him, he has knocked over his cup. 

Sungmin just stares at him, blinking, mouth half-open, and Donghae repeats, "Hyukjae and I are together." 

"Hyuk?" Sungmin turns to look at Hyukjae.

"Come on," Shindong says, "don't kid around now, we're not…"

"Yes," says Hyukjae, looking straight back at Sungmin, and Donghae thinks he knows, but not really; he'll only know years later, when he has replayed the scene so frequently in his mind that he's become familiar with every nuance and shade, just how much courage it took Hyukjae at that moment to look Sungmin in the face. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier, but I didn't know when was the right time, or whether you wanted to know – but yes. It's true. Donghae and I are together." 

"You're gay?" Shindong asks. 

"Yes," says Hyukjae, still looking at Sungmin. 

"When?" Shindong wants to know. "How? Does anyone else know? Have you been… _oh_ , so that's why you two have been sneaking off every day! I thought there was something weird about it." 

The waitress comes up to change the BBQ platter and they sit watching silently as she expertly slides in a new one and deposits the chicken bulgogi onto it. Kyuhyun asks for a towel to mop up his tea with. 

"I think," says Sungmin when the waitress has left, "we're almost done with this bottle. Do you want another one?" 

"Yes," Kyuhyun says.

"Hyung." Hyukjae is gripping his chopsticks so hard that his knuckles are white. "It's okay if you don't want to accept it, or if you don't understand it. We'll give you all the time you need. You don't have to worry about being upset by us, or anything…"

"What the hell," Shindong says, leaning over and pushing Hyukjae's head. "So you and Donghae love each other. What's wrong with that? It's love, isn't it? We don't need time to understand something as simple as that." 

Hyukjae smiles at that, a little strained but a smile nonetheless, and Kyuhyun says off-handedly, "Does this mean you'll be making long soppy calls to each other when we go to China?" 

"You can use our room," Sungmin says. Everyone looks at him and he backs up against his chair, but he reaches over to take Hyukjae's hand in his. "So you don't, you know, have everyone listening in on your call." 

All those blurred memories, all the walks in the snow and down windy sidewalks and video games and muddy soccer balls, and Donghae might be crying too, the same way that tears are leaking down Hyukjae's face. Kyuhyun's mouth is twisted at an odd angle, like he can't quite process what's going on, but he leaves an arm over Donghae's shoulders. Shindong's dumping chicken onto their plates, saying eat up, eat up, and he pokes Hyukjae's shoulder and teases him a bit about how lucky he is to get the guy whom pretty much every fan of theirs is weak-kneed for. 

"Don't worry," says Sungmin. "I'll stand by you." 

So this, Donghae thinks, is how it feels to be accepted. 

… …

None of the members go to the airport to send them off, which is reasonable since there'll be a stampede there anyway, so farewells are said in the dorm. Jungsu gives them packets of hot tea and issues last-minute advice to Hankyung to eat properly, don't skip meals, make sure everyone else is adapting. "It's not like I'll leave them to fend for themselves in my own home country," Hankyung says, slightly offended. 

Jungsu smiles. "No, you're right. You'll be a great leader." 

Donghae runs into the big bedroom and finds Hyukjae sitting alone on his bed, re-reading his favourite issue of One Piece. "I'm taking this," he announces, and grabs the monkey with the oversized head.

"You can't take that!" Hyukjae protests, making a futile snatch for his sleeping partner.

"Of course I can. Even though it smells like you." 

"You don't have space for him in your luggage," Hyukjae says.

"Watch me," Donghae says. "I'll stuff him in headfirst and flatten his legs. This way I'll know you won't cheat on me with him while I'm in Beijing." 

"You…you insecure _ass_ ," Hyukjae sputters. "If anything happens to him we're through, you hear me?" 

Donghae tucks the monkey under his arm and leans forward. Their mouths cling briefly, wetly, and Donghae pulls away before it can get any deeper, pushes his hand under Hyukjae's skirt to finger his warm skin. 

"Be safe," Hyukjae says. 

"I'll call you every day." 

"Don't." 

"This is why I'm insecure," Donghae says, pouting. 

"This is how you make yourself insecure," Hyukjae says.

They play with each other's fingers for a moment. Hyukjae smiles when Donghae licks the tips of his fingers playfully. "You'll just die without me."

"I will," Donghae says without missing a beat. "I love you, Lee Hyukjae. I'm so, absolutely, stupidly, _fuckingly_ in love with you." 

Hyukjae's mouth opens, and Donghae takes advantage of it to run his tongue into his mouth. Hyukjae sighs and pulls him close for a beat, and they're kissing, and kissing, and kissing, before Hyukjae reaches around him and snatches the monkey away. "Can't let him go all the way to China without me, sorry," he laughs.

"Cheater!" Donghae protests loudly. 

Hyukjae reaches into his closet and throws a random shirt into Donghae's face. "This smells like me, too. And it's all you're going to get." 

"Unloving bastard," Donghae grumbles, and smiles a bit anyway, just because they're being silly and it feels sort of wonderful, and brilliant, and lasting.

He manages to secure the window seat when they're on the plane, settling in comfortably with Hyukjae's shirt over his knees. The lights go off and the engine rumbles and roars and then Seoul is spread out beneath him, little streetlights and cars moving down highways and buildings as tall as his thumb, but he doesn't look down, doesn't brood, because he knows for sure that what's down there is still going to be waiting for him when he comes back.


End file.
